Event Horizon
by owlcroft
Summary: Sherlock Holmes's love for John Watson has never been in doubt, but his understanding of what friendship means to John is less certain. When Sherlock tries to protect John and in the process abandons everything John loves about him, it nearly destroys their relationship-but it also gives John the chance to show Sherlock just how this friendship thing is done.
1. Chapter 1

**Event Horizon**

 **by**

 **Paula Douglas & Owlcroft  
**

 _A/N: Let us first establish what this story is not: It is not our prediction for Series Four. It is not 100% canon-compliant. It is wishful thinking. It is in part AU. It is what we wish had happened in His Last Vow and what we wish would happen in the next series because we think it's unforgivable for any depiction of Sherlock Holmes, the man who lives by his mind, to portray him as a murderer. We argued incessantly on fan forums not only that murder is all wrong for Sherlock, but that forgiving Mary and staying married to her is all wrong for John. We think that the show has strayed from its original focus on one of the great friendships in all literature. Given that, and having been challenged to propose an alternative way to end HLV and solve the Magnussen problem, we wrote this story. If HLV turns out to have been a drug trip and we got all upset for nothing, well, at least writing this kept us off the street._

 _As always, we extend our grateful thanks to Dr. D.P. Lyle for answering our questions. Go buy his books._

ooooo

" _In layman's terms, an event horizon is defined as 'the point of no return,' i.e., the point at which the gravitational pull between two objects becomes so great as to make escape impossible." - Wikipedia_

" _Men are designed for greatness, a greatness that few ever achieve. True human happiness consists, simply put, in living virtuously. And virtuous living is the fundamental requirement and the necessary context for that deepest of human longings: true friendship." - John Cuddeback_

ooooo

 **Thursday, 25 December 2014**

 _Merry Christmas_.

In his first forty-one years on earth John Watson heard and expressed that sentiment dozens-perhaps hundreds-of times, nearly always with unalloyed pleasure. Sherlock Holmes ruined it for him. Of course he did. Burning himself into people's memories was what Sherlock did, just by virtue of being his singular, extraordinary self, generally while more or less obnoxiously demonstrating his brilliance.

Not this time.

As a man Sherlock was flawed, but as a detective so rare were his failures and so dazzling and remarkable his successes that John's confidence in his powers-his ability to perform apparent miracles-was very nearly absolute.

Until now.

This time, in answer to John's question, _We have a plan, right?_ Sherlock replied with a tacit but unequivocal _No_. This time, on the patio of the estate called Appledore, Sherlock Holmes plunged to a low that John would have furiously denied was even possible, had he not witnessed it.

In a way John blamed himself. He hadn't grasped the extent of Sherlock's stark desperation. Not then. Not until it was far too late. Despite all the evidence he'd amassed, despite knowing Sherlock better than he'd known anyone else in his life, John never fully understood the depth of his friend's humanity until that night, when Sherlock abandoned it.

ooooo

 **Wednesday, 1 October 2014**

As a boy, John Watson's favorite chore was mowing the family's small patch of lawn and the lawns of as many neighbors as he could coax into giving him access to theirs. The money he earned in this way was charming, but what he really liked about it was that the results of his work were instantly apparent. Once he settled on medicine as a career, the decision to specialize in trauma surgery was an easy one. Every action he took and every choice he made produced instant results. Better still, and in contrast to the necessarily solitary nature of mowing, the process of leading other highly skilled professionals who matched his intensity and focus led him to discover the profound satisfaction of fighting for something valuable as part of a team.

He was younger then, less inclined to introspect-which is not to say that he was entirely thoughtless-but he'd not fully understood how vital to his happiness that sense of teamwork was until he'd lost it. Ahead of him when he returned to England after his discharge from the army stretched empty decades of civilian life, bleak, futile, and inconsequential.

Then he met Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock infused everything he did with passionate intensity and his own particular brand of integrity-when he could be bothered to bestir himself from the sofa. In his friendship John rediscovered what he thought he'd lost forever: the joy and peace of fighting for something without reserve beside a friend whose intensity and courage matched his own. With Sherlock, John regained what he lost when he left the service, and he regained it tenfold.

None of which was to say that their friendship fell into place at once, fully formed, or that it always advanced smoothly, or even at all. Still, while Sherlock spent an inordinate amount of time trying, generally successfully, to convince the world of his sociopathy, and while John had been inclined to agree with him at first, he'd finally amassed too much evidence to the contrary to entertain the notion any longer. Sherlock could be focused, ruthless, and unsparing of himself and others, and he was an artist at subordinating his feelings to the facts-but he did feel, and passionately at that. No one immune to emotions would be so desperate to prove that he didn't have any. Presenting a cold, anti-social front to the world was how he protected himself. It took time and patience and no small measure of forgiveness on John's part before he saw the truth of who Sherlock was, but 'sociopath' was not it.

All of which made what happened last night even harder for John to grasp, and he was already hopelessly lost, because last night he'd discovered that the woman he'd made his wife never existed.

By now the ICU staff no longer took much notice of him. He was as much a fixture about the place as any of them as he sat with a clear view of the monitors arrayed behind and around Sherlock's bed, waiting and watching. They'd got used to John last week during Sherlock's first ICU stay, when he'd spent three days there after Sherlock was shot during the break-in at Magnussen's offices. _No. Not 'after he was shot,'_ John thought angrily. _After_ Mary _shot him_. Sherlock flat-lined on the operating table; the surgeon called time of death. How he'd clawed his way out of the abyss mystified and baffled the doctor, and although to be fair the man had no way of knowing Sherlock's history of performing miracles it mystified John, too.

Aside from Sherlock's life there was nothing John wanted more desperately than answers to the questions that tortured him. Answers, however, would not be forthcoming until Sherlock recovered. Maybe not even then. Meanwhile, John had all the time in the world. He closed the sliding glass door of the room less for Sherlock's benefit-the sedation rendered him insensible to the noise and tumult of the ward-than for his own. He needed to think.

At Leinster Gardens and in Baker Street he'd been kneecapped by what he'd just discovered about Mary; the ride to hospital in the ambulance, time spent filling out paperwork, and the anxious hours of the surgery kept his thoughts fragmented and effectively incoherent. He'd been incapable of examining critically everything Sherlock said to him yesterday, starting, to take just one example, with the idea that Mary shot him 'surgically.' The very idea was idiotic, John knew; Sherlock knew it, too, and if Mary was what Sherlock claimed she was she'd know it as well. Why would Sherlock say it, then? For that matter, why would he say any of the things he had, so many of which John knew to be false?

 _Is everyone I've ever met a psychopath?_ John had asked. It was a rhetorical question born of anger and profound distress, but Sherlock chose to treat it literally. _Yes_ , he'd said. Didn't deny the accusation, either, although John had never heard him pass up an opportunity to correct people with 'I'm a high-functioning sociopath.' Semantics aside John still knew it was rubbish.

All the same, Sherlock decided last night to insist upon the point, and he'd included Mary in that category, as well, claiming that John was drawn to them both _because_ of their psychopathy. _You're drawn to a certain lifestyle_ , he'd said. _You couldn't last a month in the suburbs without storming a crack den_. It was true that the comparative sterility of domesticity weighed sadly on John, but he'd done enough introspecting in therapy to work out why he loved working on their cases and to know what he missed about them. That month-long hiatus resurrected the old feelings of loss he'd endured on his return to England, but while he'd longed for something more interesting than his vanilla suburban life, he'd not gone to retrieve the neighbor's boy with the aim of picking a fight, either.

Sherlock's brother once accused John of missing the war; John knew that he'd be a psychopath himself if that were true. As for Sherlock, much of his knowledge about human nature was paint-by-numbers stuff that didn't always serve him well when he was confronted with the nuances, vagaries, and irrationalities of real human beings, but he knew himself and he knew John well enough to know that the 'you're attracted to psychopaths' idea was rot. Therefore, John decided, he said it for a reason other than its truth.

And now that he thought about it, John realized that while Sherlock didn't introduce the topic he did run with it. If he didn't do so for himself and he didn't do so for John, then he did it for Mary. For some reason, Sherlock wanted Mary to believe...what? That it was John's fault that he married a serial killer? Sherlock made a point of aligning himself with her. Having a problem with betrayal and assassination made John the unreasonable one, while she was just the client Sherlock wanted to help. John couldn't reconcile Sherlock's behaviour with what he knew was true and what he knew Sherlock knew was true. Nor could he reconcile the Mary Morstan he'd known for the last year with what he discovered about her last night. _Check your premises, John_ , Sherlock was fond of telling him. _Contradictions can't exist_.

What drew him to Mary, then? Psychopathy, as Sherlock said? Like hell. When he met her he'd been mourning Sherlock's apparent death for over a year. Still shell-shocked. He'd spent a good deal of that time half-believing that the suicide was a trick, because self-murder was so horribly, unutterably _wrong_ for the most vibrantly alive human being he'd ever known. Yet Sherlock plunged off that building right in front of him. After a time, when no hints to the contrary emerged-no cryptic messages, no clues, no hope-John descended into an even darker place, although with the image of his friend's shattered body burned into his brain he'd not believed a darker place existed. There would be no miracle. Sherlock was not coming back. His death, like all the others John had seen, was real and it was final.

A year after Sherlock's suicide John was desperate for the pain to stop. His decision to return to work was intended to help him alleviate it. The new nurse at the clinic said "I'm sorry for your loss" just like everyone else did when he returned. When she smiled at him it was without guile or an agenda; she never obtruded herself into his notice. She was professional; kind and competent with the patients; and at all times bright, personable, and buoyantly confident. When he asked her out for coffee she'd seemed surprised but pleased. She never pressed him to talk about his loss. Never pressed him to speak of anything at all, but as his affection for her grew he shared more of his inner self, although he didn't speak of Sherlock until they'd been dating for three months, and then only because she discovered Lestrade's shoebox full of memorabilia.

She'd found it stowed in the TV cabinet when she was looking for a movie they could watch together. Of course she'd asked about the odd collection of items in the box. Anyone would have. His face must have reflected the stab of pain he'd felt, because she apologized at once and urged him to forget she'd even asked, but he thought it was important for her to know, or at least important for him to share with her, so he told her about the items in the box, about why Greg had brought them round, how Sherlock had come by them, and how John became friends with a man firmly believed by all who met him to be utterly incapable of friendship.

They never got around to watching movies that night. John spoke of Sherlock to Mary as he'd not spoken even to his therapist, and he'd talked until he was hoarse. Mary had listened, sometimes laughing, sometimes with tears in her eyes. Speaking about Sherlock still hurt, but somehow it felt like a tribute, too, and John understood that trusting Mary enough to share his loss meant that he'd reached a milestone in his recovery. When he made love to her that night it was with a sense of peace that he'd not known for more than a year. In wondering the next day why he'd been so willing to let this woman see his heartbreak he realized with a shock that it was because he loved her.

Eight nights ago she killed Sherlock.

John dropped his head in his hands as his eyes filled. God, what the _fuck_ was happening to him? Abruptly he was brought back to the present when Sherlock exhaled audibly. The sedation kept him from waking fully, but his eyelids fluttered as he resisted it.

Roughly brushing his face with the heels of his hands John sat up, flicking his gaze over the monitors. Except for HR and RR, slightly elevated because Sherlock was stirring, nothing had changed. He gave Sherlock's forearm a pat. "All right, mate," he said. "It's okay. Rest while you can. You know we hate it when patients aren't sleep-deprived."

The thoracic epidural Sherlock received in the operating theatre was keeping him pain-free for the moment so John wasn't concerned that he was uncomfortable. There was no evidence of occlusion in the chest tube drain line. He peeled back the dressing from around the tube: still securely in place. Relief when he'd made triply sure there was no evidence of crepitation that would indicate sub-Q emphysema. Breath sounds normal. He arranged the chest tube drain line so it was more nearly vertical, and having satisfied himself that everything was as it should be he twitched the pillows into a better position to keep Sherlock's airway clear, lowered the head of the bed incrementally, and adjusted the blanket to keep him warm.

Sherlock muttered something unintelligible and his eyes opened uncomprehending, but he relaxed and drifted away again when John took his hand. He would not remember anything that happened to him while he was sedated, but John believed that in the moment, at least, he would understand that he was not in this fight alone.

 _Jesus, Sherlock_ , he thought despairingly, _what the_ hell _are we going to do?_ Such a profound betrayal. Such a massive fraud. To what end? _Why?_ It was just the first of a thousand questions John couldn't answer about his wife.

Sherlock taught him the value of looking for the motives behind words and actions, but it was not something that came naturally to him even now, and very often he neglected to do it because his default was to take people at face value, just as he presented himself. On this as on innumerable other things Sherlock had an opinion: He maintained that it was an error rooted in John's tendency to ascribe his own virtues to others.

So: Motives. Sherlock himself never did anything without a reason. Everything he did and said last night, then, was by design. Everything he said and even how he said it. He was bleeding out. He was running out of time and he knew it. Whatever he knew or suspected about Mary, he didn't have time to share it with John and he wasn't willing to say it in front of Mary. His words were designed to buy himself time. "Time for what?" John wondered aloud.

' _I can't tell you everything yet,' Sherlock said when John met him in Leinster Gardens._ ' _Not now. Maybe not for a very long time. You're going to wonder what the truth is and I won't be able to answer you.'_

' _You never tell me everything,' John replied._ ' _How is this any different?'_

' _Because this time it's going to hurt you.'_

' _So how is this any different?' John asked again._

' _John, please. There isn't much time. What happens next will hurt. When it does you need to remember that I told you the truth of that, because in a few minutes everything will depend on it. Everything. Your life. Remember that I'm telling you this now. Please.'_

 _Remember_. John hadn't understood him then, but now...Remember who lied to him. Remember who did not. When he was standing knee-deep in the ashes of his life, when Sherlock couldn't explain because he'd nearly killed himself to warn him about Mary, when the fallout was at its worst: Remember who told him the truth.

Leinster Gardens was true. What Sherlock said in the flat was a lie. A lie not for John, apparently, but for Mary, and for an end John couldn't begin to guess. Did it work? he wondered. Mary could always tell when Sherlock was lying, or said she could. Did she believe that he was taking her side last night? That she was his 'client'? That he forgave her for shooting him? That last one might even be true, John thought. The great muppet might very well think that it was the rational thing to do, in the circumstances. But then why did he make a point of revealing her culpability at such a terrible cost to himself, and why now? No. No, he must have a chase in view, and he wanted John to know of the danger while still convincing Mary that he was working for her. Whatever he said last night was what he wanted Mary to believe, not John. Why? John couldn't begin to conceive of a reason.

 _I won't be able to answer you._ John looked down at Sherlock's hand in his own. _You will,_ he thought. _I believe that._

Last night he'd thought Mary was being stoic in the face of his rage-after all, how could she defend the indefensible?-but now he wondered. Was that courage or calculation? She never even apologized to Sherlock for shooting him. She never did a lot of things that he'd expect someone to do in the circumstances. Like explain herself or at least act like she was coming clean with him. Wouldn't anyone else caught in a lie that massive and accused of a crime that egregious beg to be forgiven? In fact, she hardly said a word, now that he thought of it. She offered nothing: neither confirmed nor denied most of what Sherlock said about her. She just stood there, still and listening like a...like one of those ambush predators that lies motionless until its prey wanders into range. Taking it all in like she was just gathering information. To what end, though? Christ, he was back to that.

Reasons, then. Motives. Mary never offered any. Her only flicker of emotion came when she angrily defended the idea of killing Magnussen. _People like him deserve to die. That's why there are people like me_. People like her. _What is she?_ Sherlock kept asking him yesterday. John's answer was different from Sherlock's: She's a liar. A liar who faked everything about herself to the man she claimed to love. Could someone who genuinely loved him kill someone he loved? Everything she knew about John's desolation didn't stop her from shooting Sherlock herself. She was willing to put John through that agony again, by her own hand. John angrily dismissed the idea that she'd wanted to _protect_ him. Even in his distress it was hard for him to face those kinds of emotions comfortably, but of the two, his wife and his best friend, which one had acted like someone would who loved him? With what he knew about her now could he imagine Mary nearly killing herself for his sake, the way Sherlock did last night?

For that matter, could he imagine Sherlock lying to him about the very essence of what he was? He faked his death to save John, Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson, and as usual he made an over-dramatic production of the whole thing and prolonged it well past its sell-by date, but that was Sherlock. Whatever he understood now about his value to John, he didn't understand it two years ago. Vapor-locking when John asked him to be his best man proved that. But Sherlock never, not from the moment they met, misrepresented to John who he was. He had a very take-me-or-leave-me attitude with everyone, and seemed just as pleased when people chose option B. At all times John had enough information to make an informed decision about whether to continue the friendship or not. Mary, though. Was _anything_ he knew about her true?

He got up, went to the sink, splashed cold water on his face, then stood there with his elbows on the rim and the water running, his head hanging over the basin.

He'd been in love with a fraud. She spent the last year lying to him for reasons he couldn't even conceive of. The woman he thought was his wife didn't exist, but more devastatingly she _couldn't_ exist. Not in the person of an assassin, an unrepentant killer. A killer who was carrying his child. He shut off the water, not bothering to dry his hands, staggered into the bathroom, and closed the door. Leant back against it and let his feet slide out from under him, and then he sat on the floor and wept.


	2. Chapter 2

**Saturday, 4 October 2014**

John took the thumb drive from his pocket and considered it. _Don't read it in front of me_ , Mary said, _because you won't love me when you're through_. At the thought his face took on an unconscious scowl. Like everything else that happened that night, he couldn't explain the drive. If what was on it was that terrible, then why not keep this secret as she did all her others? If she was their client now-and she didn't object to being classified that way-then wouldn't they find out about her in any case? Was it her way of pre-empting what Sherlock would discover about her, to make herself look better?

 _If you read it_. Christ, that was the last thing he wanted to do. He didn't _want_ to stop loving her. Didn't want to see what she was afraid of showing him, not if it would end with the loss of his dreams for their life together. A return to his boring life in the suburbs, if that was the price for making all this go away...God, how he'd seize the chance for that now. Just twelve days ago he'd have said otherwise, but-

"Back again." Molly Hooper slipped into the seat opposite him.

He was sitting in a booth at the back of the hospital canteen with a view of the whole place, but he was so absorbed in his thoughts that he never saw her approach. He looked up with the best smile he could muster in the circumstances. "You made good time."

"Not bad," she admitted, drawing his laptop and keys from her tote and setting them on the table. "Mary was at work, like you said. I rang twice just in case, though. Didn't want to startle her by just barging in."

John reached for his pocket. "I'll get your cab fare-"

"John Watson," she said firmly. "Step away from that wallet. You will definitely _not_ get the fare."

He put up his hands in a deprecating gesture. "Lunch?" he said tentatively. "Coffee? Don't hurt me," he added.

"That's just cab fare by proxy," she said. "Let me do a nice thing for you."

That time his smile, though still somewhat harassed, wasn't forced. "Thanks."

All the same, he couldn't completely veil the underlying emotional turmoil and she couldn't stop herself asking, "John, I...Is everything okay? I mean, besides Sherlock being so ill."

"Yeah, fine. Good." It didn't sound convincing even to his own ear.

"Most people look less upset when they say that."

He shook his head. "It's nothing. Really. Thanks for asking."

"But it's none of my business." She smiled again.

"No, it's not that. Molly, I'm sorry, I-"

"No, I wasn't trying to pry. Sorry." She looked down at her hands, then back at him and said, in a completely different tone, "How's Sherlock doing? I didn't get a chance to ask earlier."

"Improving," John said, happy to change the topic. "Yeah. It's two tough surgeries to come back from, though. Lots of pain, but he's been good about the physio. He's up to two laps a day around the nurses' station. The PT's with him now, and then they'll have him sit in a chair for a bit. I'd like to get him discharged the day after tomorrow, if the attending agrees."

"Ooh, that's good. That's earlier than you thought, isn't it?"

"It is, but he'll do better at home. I'll stay with him for a bit, make sure he's keeping to the programme. He'd tread all over Mrs. Hudson."

"You'll be his resident doctor again," she said, sounding pleased. "He'll like that. What does Mary think about her doctor being a nurse?"

"It's fine," he said, trying to sound breezy about it.

It seemed to work. "Well, you're lucky to have her," Molly said. "Not everyone would be good with having her husband away for days on end. She understands how much he needs you." That didn't have quite the cheering effect she'd hoped, and during a silence in which he stared at the thumb drive on the table she realized that her presence was taxing his civility. "Well," she said good-naturedly, getting up, "you have things to do. Tell Sherlock I said hello, and call me if you need anything else. Promise."

"I promise. Thanks, Molly."

When she'd gone his thoughts returned to the thumb drive, still sitting on the table next to the laptop. _If you read it_. Well, what if he didn't? It would be a relief to Mary, certainly. He tried to project how he'd feel if he got up this instant and tossed the thing into a bin, and to his dismay he realized that as much as he dreaded the idea of looking at it, as much as he wanted all of this to just go away, discarding it would make him feel worse. As though he was betraying himself. He wasn't sure how that could be.

People had reasons for everything they did, he reflected, so why did she give him the damned thing in the first place? He couldn't get past that one. If she'd wanted her secrets to remain secret, then why even introduce the idea that they were captured on that device? Who even put something allegedly so dire on a thumb drive? He wasn't Machiavellian enough to answer that; his mind didn't work that way. Sherlock's did, but he didn't want Sherlock anywhere around if he decided to read it. Thus the canteen.

 _Has trust issues_ , his therapist once wrote in her session notes. She'd be dismayed by him now, but when one's wife had been revealed to be a rogue assassin, wasn't mistrust a virtue?

As far as that went, how was he supposed to overlook homicide in a life partner? What was on the drive that was worse than that? How could he raise a family with her? It was insanity. The implications-divorce, suing for custody, single fatherhood-appalled him. _If it please the court, my client seeks custody of his child because his wife is frequently away shooting people for money_. No. No way. He couldn't let himself think of the mechanics of how this would end. He had to stay focused on what was important, and right now that meant getting more data. Sherlock was always desperate for information, and John had never been more sympathetic to that craving than he was now: When you were trying to see around corners and through brick walls, there was no greater asset than knowledge.

He needed the truth. He'd been lied to and deceived and defrauded. Those were all things that had been done to him. Was he really still vacillating about whether he was going to do them to himself?

He opened the laptop and slipped the drive into the port.

ooooo

Sherlock sat by the window of his room, focused not on the scenery outside but on the point at which John would appear in his field of view. The pain didn't affect his percipience, and in the reflection of the glass wall of another room he'd spied John the moment he pushed through the double doors of the surgical unit.

John ran a professional eye over him. Pink still tinged his cheeks, evidence of the exertion required to shuffle around the nurses' station, but he'd been washed and shaved and while he was clearly knackered from the therapy and exercise session, just sitting up in the chair wasn't over-taxing him at the moment. Thoracotomies so often resulted in long-lasting, debilitating pain that John was really quite pleased that Sherlock's discomfort was at a level he could tolerate as well as he was. Since yesterday he was reporting six of ten on the pain scale while active and four or less when sedentary. Then, too, the surgeon and anesthetist were of the opinion-which John whole-heartedly shared-that aggressive pain management beginning in the operating theatre itself resulted in significantly less pain long-term, and they'd not stinted on the analgesia.

While John assessed him Sherlock returned the favor, searching his face. "What happened?" he asked as John approached.

"Just talking to Molly in the canteen. She brought my laptop. Says hello."

Sherlock considered him. "You read the thumb drive."

"I knew I should have kept you sedated," John said with a scowl, clearing the bed tray and setting the laptop on it.

Sherlock studied his grim, closed-off face as he moved about the room but didn't press him to say anything. John would get to it when he got to it, but at the moment he was in John Watson, MD mode, something that was a never-ending source of interest to Sherlock.

Following the usual questions to assess Sherlock's level of pain currently and during his physio, John reviewed the PCA data that recorded Sherlock's use of the device, scribbled some calculations, then emailed the attending (copying the nurses' station) with an update and a request to adjust Sherlock's cocktail of meds to a combination he thought would be more effective at a lower dose.

He fired up the heating pad and arranged it on the bed so it would be under Sherlock's right shoulder, then got him up and back into bed. Positioned the PCA where he wouldn't have to struggle to reach it. Once he was settled, Sherlock tipped his head back and closed his eyes with a sigh, but he had questions and he didn't allow himself to rest for very long. Nor did he take advantage of the PCA. Merely sitting up in bed wasn't very painful in any case-relative to the therapy and bed transfers it wasn't worth speaking of-and just now he wanted his mind clear.

John opened the laptop, took the thumb drive from his pocket, and handed it to him. "Take a look, if you want," he said.

Sherlock eyed him but didn't waste time asking whether he was sure. He clicked the drive into the port and selected the icon when it appeared. He blinked once in surprise at the window that opened, but then he looked up and into the distance with the tense, remote expression that John knew so well.

John had been standing there watching with his arms crossed, but now he pulled up a chair and sat down. "If you've got an explanation I'll hear it," he said.

"She lost," Sherlock said gravely, but there was a note of satisfaction in his voice.

"Sorry?"

Sherlock refocused and looked at him. "She lost. She gambled that you wouldn't look at it, and she lost."

"Explain, Sherlock, for God's sake. Why would she give me an empty drive and act like it was so important?"

"She was confident you wouldn't read it, so it didn't matter whether anything was on it or not."

"Well, what the hell was the point, then?" John cried. "What, it's just a prop? Another way to jerk me around?"

Sherlock didn't answer, and in his agitation John got up and paced the small room. "She said if I saw what was on it I'd stop loving her," he continued after a few minutes, his voice strained with the intensity of his emotion. "But there's nothing there." He went to the window and stared out. "There's nothing there," he repeated, as realization dawned. "It's empty. A blank. Like my marriage."

Sherlock's eyes never left John's face but he kept silent. John was working it out himself and Sherlock didn't want to influence him.

At last John turned away from the window to glare at him. "You're unbelievable, you know that?" he said bitterly.

"Sorry?"

"You picked Leinster Gardens for your big reveal, yeah? Those empty houses. You're the only person I've ever met who can bleed out and orchestrate symbolism at the same time."

"John," Sherlock began, and there was such profound sympathy in his voice that John stopped him.

"Don't," he said quickly, his voice tight with barely-suppressed emotion. "I'm fine. It's fine." He took a breath to calm himself-that never worked-and returned to the chair at the bedside. Sat twisting the band on his finger until he realized he was doing it and stopped abruptly. "It took me this long to read it," he said of the drive. "This long to figure it out: There doesn't have to be anything on it, does there? I already knew enough." They both sat silently for several minutes, and then John said, "She was that sure I wouldn't read it. Were you?"

"I was sure that you would."

"How? How the hell could you know that? _I_ didn't know until a few minutes ago."

"You're a romantic, John," Sherlock said with affection, "but only when you have the luxury. That's the only way she's ever seen you. When you don't have that luxury, you're a doctor. A soldier. Everything those roles imply. Everything you've ever done is how I knew."

John stared at him: _Everything you've ever done_.

"That night," John began, and Sherlock knew which night he meant. "Those things you said. About me. About why I chose her."

"Yes," Sherlock said reluctantly. John wasn't ready for this.

"They weren't true. But...they _were_ true."

"I told her _a_ truth," Sherlock said. "But not _the_ truth."

John stared at him. "Why?" he finally asked. " _Why?_ Sherlock-" He looked away, out the window. He watched a small jet on its approach to London City Airport until it slid silently behind a building, then turned back. "Tell me what the _hell_ is going on."

Sherlock took a breath, held it, exhaled. "I can't answer you yet. In part because I don't have all the answers, and in part because..."

"What?"

"Because the answers I do have can get you killed. I'd still like to prevent that."

''What I don't know can't hurt me."

''Yes."

"I'll risk it."

"I won't."

Impasse. There was warmth and kindness in Sherlock's eyes now, but also every bit of the entirely characteristic intransigence. John knew it was out of his hands: Sherlock would tell him what he could, when he could, and no sooner. "I called Greg, you know," he said in a completely different tone. "Lestrade," he added, when Sherlock cocked his head. "He pulled the 999 records from the night you were shot. There were no incoming calls from Mary's mobile number. She didn't call the ambulance."

Sherlock couldn't suppress a tiny smile: He knew John would figure it out. "I know," he said.

"Then why did you say-"

"I told her what I needed her to hear. Now she believes that I believe it. It doesn't hurt that she thinks I'm that stupid, but primarily she needs to think that I'm on her side."

"The hell for?" John demanded, frustrated again.

Sherlock kept his own voice low and calm, just as he did five nights ago. "Do you remember what she asked me, when I told her that?"

"No."

"'Why would you help me?'" Sherlock said. "It was the most obvious question open to her. She couldn't fail to ask it. So I answered it in the most obvious way: Because she saved my life."

"Except she didn't," John said. "So... _Are_ you on her side?"

"I'm on yours, John. Always. Whether that includes Mary or not...That's one of the questions I can't answer yet," Sherlock said. "I don't know exactly who she is yet, and until I know that I can't know exactly what she intends."

"Intends for...?"

"I don't know."

"You suspect."

"I have four unpleasant theories. Meanwhile, I was buying time. Time and room to maneuver. Convincing her that I'm working for her covers every eventuality. Now I can refine and control what she thinks she knows to suit whatever circumstances arise."

John didn't reply and Sherlock, watching him with a pain in his chest that never came from a bullet, could see that he'd gone too far for one day. "John," he said in a low voice. "I will get your answers."

"But not today."

"No. Not today."


	3. Chapter 3

**Tuesday, 7 October 2014**

At the kitchen table of her upstairs tenant's flat, Mrs. Hudson leafed through the previous week's _People_ magazine. Just as she turned to an article about Leonardo DiCaprio speaking on climate change from the deck of his new yacht she heard the floorboards creak in Sherlock's room. A moment later the detective emerged, his hair in disarray, dark circles under his eyes, his gait the cautious barefoot shuffle he'd perforce adopted to protect himself from the pain of his injury. Nothing about his appearance recommended itself, but John had assured her that he was satisfied with Sherlock's recovery so far, and she supposed that after a bullet in the chest and two major surgeries he had every right to look exhausted and sore. And after all, it was just his second day home from hospital.

Putting one hand on the buffet to steady himself, Sherlock paused in the kitchen entry, glancing past her into the living room.

"John's gone to the market," she said, by way of explaining her presence.

In fact he wasn't looking for John-even before he climbed out of bed he'd established that Mrs. Hudson had been left to babysit him-but for his laptop, because he had work to do and not a lot of time. Any reply he made would just encourage her to yap, however, and he couldn't bear the thought of it, so he didn't bother to correct her.

Yet even without speaking a word she managed to annoy him. The sympathetic tilt of her head and her clasped hands eloquently conveyed the sentiment _Oh, you poor thing_. Still, she was fully aware that he hated being helped and even when healthy he was prone to truculence when he was attempted to be mothered. She'd seen John successfully handle him by adopting a professional, unsentimental, minimalist approach, but that was beyond her.

His gaze swept the kitchen, and hoping that he might be hungry she said, "He left you a plate with a bit of egg and some ham. For the protein, he said. I'll heat it up."

"My laptop. I need it."

"Mm?" she said vaguely, feigning deafness as she retrieved the plastic wrap-covered plate from the refrigerator, but as an attempt at casual unconcern it was a total failure.

"John," he decided accusingly.

"Sherlock," she said reproachfully. "He wants you to get better. He said you can have it once you've eaten your-"

"Not hungry."

"That's because you haven't smelled it yet," she said confidently, popping the plate into the microwave. ''He was cooking it when I got here and I'd have asked him to make some for me, if I hadn't just eaten."

A curl of his lip conveyed his opinion of this information and he hobbled slowly into the living room, where he eased himself into a chair at the table. There was no point looking for the laptop: John would have put it in Mrs. Hudson's flat or in his own room, but either way Sherlock wasn't up to the stairs just now. Even this short excursion had his pulse racing. The laptop might just as well be in Iceland.

John assured him that even with analgesics the pain would likely linger for some months yet, and having survived a shooting himself-and of course, as a surgeon-he would know, so Sherlock was trying to make peace with it, but it limited and therefore frustrated him inexpressibly. Every waking moment and even his dreams were tormented by an oppressive sense of urgency, the awareness that his knowledge was incomplete, possibly fatally so. He wasn't entirely sure what they were facing, but he was very much afraid that at the end of it all John's life was at risk. He needed answers to a lot of questions: Who Mary really was, what she did to make her drastic change of identity necessary, who helped her arrange it, how Magnussen found out about her, why he targeted her at all, and most importantly why she attached herself to John.

And he was all too aware that John was waiting on him for answers to resolve his own emotional distress over the revelation that the woman he loved never existed. He needed John to know about her, but it was only afterward that he began to understand the extent of John's anguish, and to regret it. Now his anxiety for John, the psychological strain of his own weakness, the pain of his injury, and the uncertainty surrounding their situation combined to render him morose and irascible.

Nor was he proud of how he'd conducted himself in their friendship, something he'd had far too much time on which to dwell these last two weeks. He'd made far too many mistakes, and those were just the ones he knew about. No doubt he'd committed dozens of transgressions without even being aware: At some point John probably just got tired of pointing them out. Yet Sherlock wanted to improve and he'd always exerted himself to understand John. To 'accommodate' him was the term he used in his own mind, by which he meant: To make room for John in his life.

Despite his careless remark to his brother- _What life? I've been away_ -about which his conscience pricked him these days, Sherlock found John endlessly fascinating and was therefore attentive to him, in his own way: sensitive to his likes, dislikes, virtues, flaws, habits, moods-and motives. Motives: Writing a best man's speech required him to focus on John's motives for maintaining their friendship and to objectively consider all the evidence at hand, none of which led him to conclude that John loved danger for its own sake. The truth was more charmingly nuanced than that. As a surgeon, as a soldier, and as the best friend of the world's only consulting detective, John Watson ran toward the sound of the guns. But it wasn't danger itself that drew him, Sherlock now theorized, but what he found when he reached it. By training and by inclination John found satisfaction, even joy, in applying his particular sorts of skills, skills which required the fullest use of his mind, just as challenging, high-risk cases required the fullest use of Sherlock's. That shared source of enjoyment in life was what they recognized implicitly in each other from their first meeting, but it was something Sherlock was only now beginning to grasp explicitly. As a discovery it was one of the most profound of his life, representing not just a personal milestone but, in light of the problems facing him in the immediate present, a significant advantage over the person he now considered his most dangerous enemy: Mary Watson.

It was a wholly unexpected stroke when John, shattered by the revelation about his wife, asked rhetorically whether everyone he knew was a psychopath, but Sherlock could take an opening when one was handed to him. John was distraught and reached for the most facile accusation available, but it worked admirably for Sherlock's purposes. Regardless of what he'd like the world at large to believe and what he'd like to believe himself, Sherlock knew he wasn't a sociopath. He knew that John didn't believe it either; not really. On the other hand, Sherlock was now firmly convinced that John's wife _was_ a psychopath. A very clever, very manipulative psychopath with lethal skills and tendencies. Sherlock was pleased to believe this because Mary successfully played him since he met her, but the night he escaped the hospital provided him with an abundance of objective evidence, as well.

Everything she did in the flat that night cemented the conviction that he'd formed in Magnussen's office when she coolly shot him-someone she'd known and worked closely with for months-with no more emotion than she'd grant to a target on a practice range. Nor did she display much emotion once they got to Baker Street. Her attitude was one of defiance, not remorse or distress or dismay or even empathy for her husband. John kicked over a chair in his rage and pain and she didn't even blink. A normal person facing the ruin of her marriage would have reacted emotionally. A normal person would have thrown herself on their mercy, cried, begged to be forgiven. The only emotions Mary expressed were defiance when she snapped that people like Magnussen should be killed, and pride when she said, _That's why there are people like me_. Psychopaths.

Nor did she apologize to Sherlock for shooting him or to John for lying to him; never tried to explain herself, never asked for a second chance or even a hearing for her side of the story. Never offered a story at all. She let Sherlock do all the talking because until she knew what he knew, she couldn't formulate her own response to this new setback. It was her way of regaining her footing, but it worked to Sherlock's advantage because it gave him free rein to tailor what he said according to what he wanted her to know. She'd been genuinely upset at Leinster Gardens as John brushed angrily past her because for a moment she thought that all the work she'd put into him was about to come to naught. Finding out about her would 'break' John, yes, but she cared about that for her own sake, not for his. She'd invested a lot of time and energy into setting him up-for what?-and what she learned from Sherlock that night would determine whether her scheme was ruined or salvageable. So she waited and watched, saying little, offering almost nothing, while her husband's grief and anger cut Sherlock to the bone.

Significantly, though, she'd given John that thumb drive. Because Sherlock had been the one insisting that she was a client, the one trying to learn more about her, it would have been logical for her to give it to him. Instead she'd given it to John. Why? Because she couldn't manipulate Sherlock the way she could manipulate her husband. Sherlock would have been plugging the thing into his laptop before she finished speaking. But John... Everything she knew about him told her that he wouldn't read it. Everything Sherlock knew about him told him that he would.

The bit about not wanting to see the moment he stopped loving her was an inspired stroke, a ploy which from her perspective was virtually guaranteed to work. Nothing she could have said would have held John at arm's length so effectively if he was the man she believed him to be. No, she didn't want to see the moment he stopped loving her, but just as much of what Sherlock fed her that night was _a_ truth, not _the_ truth, so was her remark to John. Psychopaths required control over their targets, and the truth was that Mary didn't care whether John loved her or not, just whether she was in control of continuing or ending the relationship, which she would do at a time and place of her choosing, not his.

The thumb drive had probably been rattling around in her purse for ages. Nothing to do with anything. Suddenly it became a weapon that would make John unwilling to look too closely at what was happening, by suggesting the presence of something so dire that it would devastate him more thoroughly than he already was. But she didn't know John as well as she thought she did. Like Sherlock, she spent almost two years living with him, but unlike Sherlock she never truly understood him because she didn't really care about him. She knew him as a romantic. So did Sherlock. But Sherlock knew him as so much more because he'd cared enough to look. _What was that, brother dear? Oh, yes: Caring is not an advantage. Sure about that, are you?_

So: Psychopath. Whatever Mary showed John while they were courting it wasn't psychopathy, but it could not possibly be a coincidence that she attached herself to him. Regardless of the heights of courage and resourcefulness he reached in the war and on Sherlock's more harrowing cases, John was not Captain Adventure in real life. Clinic work didn't provide the scope for the sort of drama that would catch the eye of a psychopathic serial-killing assassin who just chanced to be his co-worker. He wasn't even doing real medicine, as far as Sherlock was concerned. No high-stakes trauma surgery. It was just...grotty children and strep. So why would Mary, currently the bored doctor's wife, have looked twice at John? Oh, John attracted all sorts of female attention, but it was _normal_ female attention. Conventional. Boring.

For that matter, why would a psychopath lie her way into a nursing job? Unless Mary was after something suspicious, her employment there and her association with John made no sense. So what would explain it? Either John was assigned to her as a job or she was free-lancing for her own purposes. If he was an assignment, who assigned her to him, and why, and didn't a cover as deep as going through with a marriage suggest incredibly high stakes? Life or death stakes?

Yet she hadn't damaged John physically, and God knew she'd had ample opportunity for that. So he was back to the assignment idea. Was this all Mycroft's doing, then, as part of a plan to keep John protected during Sherlock's absence? But no; John's safety was supposed to be secured by Sherlock's 'death' and Mycroft wouldn't bother with a redundant layer of security for someone he never paid much attention to in any case. Nor did Mary call off the wedding, which she certainly would have done had John merely been an assignment of Mycroft's. Sherlock rejected the idea that she might have fallen in love with John in the meantime: Even a man who despised sentiment could grasp the impossibility of love and the willingness to defraud co-existing. That left Mary either commissioned by Sherlock's enemies or acting on her own initiative, and that made her pre-Morstan identity the key to all the other answers he needed.

Mary. He couldn't bring himself hate her-not the way he hated Charles Augustus Magnussen, who had never personally damaged him but who instead represented a hated _idea_ -but whatever cordiality and even nascent affection he developed for her vanished when she shot him. Not because she shot him-in the circumstances it was a viable option-but because of what discovering her fraud did to John, and because of what discovering the truth of her was going to do to him. Sherlock was confident of very little at this point, but he was pretty clear on that.

Another thing he was certain of was the enmity between her and Magnussen. The blackmailer was extremely clever, too clever to be caught-so far-and it didn't help that Sherlock's own brother was standing guard over him. Sherlock's lip curled again into a sneer at the thought. Mycroft. Under the thumb of a reptile like Magnussen and living contently with it. Not just refusing to fight back but protecting the man. Contemptible. But it did provide one explanation for Magnussen's interest in Mary: With leverage over her and therefore over John and finally over Sherlock, Magnussen would have one more club to wield against Mycroft. Control Mycroft Holmes and you control the British government. Tidy. Neat. Make yourself actively _useful_ to Mycroft Holmes, though, and you gained something even more valuable: his protection. Seemed like overkill if Magnussen was looking for protection from Sherlock. Annoyingly, his campaign against the media mogul had never gained much traction. Well, he said 'much.' It had gained zero traction.

As an explanation for Mary's problem with Magnussen the man's power-lust was only a partial answer, however, because she was on Magnussen's radar long before Sherlock targeted him, and therefore long before Magnussen would have needed to use her as a way to control the Holmes brothers.

 _So sorry your family couldn't be here to see this - CAM_. At the time Sherlock assigned that wedding telegram no more importance than he did to the others he read that day, but now its provenance and ominous undertone were clear. Still, Mary was neither rich nor influential, so what explained Magnussen's interest in her? Did Magnussen intend to use her skills for his own ends? Possibly, although it really wasn't his style.

Mary herself insisted as recently as yesterday that she didn't know how Magnussen discovered the information he held about her past. That conversation was conducted by phone, of course: An in-person meeting would have been preferable, but John's emotions were still far too raw for that to have ended as anything but a complete debacle, so Sherlock phoned her while John was in the shower. Nor could Mary tell him when Magnussen discovered the information, although she reported that he'd first approached her about it in early 2011, four years after she adopted her new identity. The key question at the moment, Sherlock believed, remained that pre-Morstan identity. That was not information Mary would give him, whether she believed him to be on her side or not.

The microwave pinged and Mrs. Hudson bustled over with a little plate: a single egg, scrambled and dusted with pepper, and a slice of Canadian bacon, already cut up. As though he was five-but it did save him the awkwardness of trying to cut it himself, and he knew that John told her to do this, as providing him one less excuse to avoid eating.

She set the plate the table in front of him, along with a fork, a paper towel square folded in half, and a glass of orange juice. Contrary to her prediction, the aroma of the food utterly failed to stir his appetite. Still, John had been very clear about healing depending in good part on a proper diet, and Sherlock was nothing if not eager to recover, so he picked up the fork and ate reluctantly, mechanically, with most of his mental energy spent trying to ignore the pain in his side and Mrs. Hudson's quiet triumph at having got him to eat-although she wasn't quite brave enough to venture a remark about it.

"My computer," he said ungraciously the instant he finished.

"Yes, dear," she replied tolerantly, picking up the plate and setting down a tiny paper cup containing his pain and anti-nausea medications.

" _Today_ ," he snapped, and she pursed her lips.

"Sherlock Holmes," she said with asperity, "I know you're not feeling well, but it doesn't take any more energy to be polite than it does to be rude."

This was intolerable. "I'll get it myself," he growled, and stood-too fast. He stopped with a sharp intake of breath and clutched at the edge of the table as the pain made his head swim.

"Oh, Sherlock," she cried in dismay.

He stood with his eyes closed, teeth clenched, bracing himself. "I need. My. _Computer!_ " He ground out the last word in what passed for a shout these days and she hurried off to the kitchen with the plate. He sank back into the chair and she returned a moment later with his laptop, which she clapped none-too-gently onto the table in front of him.

"There's your bloody toy. I hope you're happy," she sniffed.

"You're still here," he noted, using his left hand to open it. "So: No."

"Why John doesn't keep you sedated I can't imagine," she muttered discontentedly, and stalked off.

Sherlock didn't even hear her leave. He stared unseeing at the screen as he returned to the question of how Magnussen learnt of Mary's enemies. In spite of the man's sliminess he didn't really move in those circles, among the sort of people Mary would have met as a CIA sniper and assassin. If Sherlock accepted the premise that Mycroft was, if not working in partnership with Magnussen then at least exchanging information with him from time to time, then did Mycroft tell him? Did Mycroft even know? Sherlock confirmed to his brother only last week that Mary shot him, but was that all Mycroft knew about her? The fact that he never said anything about Mary before that-that he tolerated without demur her close association with Sherlock-suggested that he'd not perceived anything questionable about her before then. Most likely he'd dismissed her as another of John's impermanent girlfriends. Then, too, her new identity withstood the inquiries of powerful, dangerous enemies, so it might just as easily have withstood Mycroft's, and apparently was still doing so.

Well, then: Mary adopted a new identity so iron-clad that only someone very close to her stood any chance of either penetrating it or even knowing she'd adopted it. Someone close but lacking affection for her, because no one with her best interests in mind would have contacted Magnussen. And someone with a criminal background or contacts, because other than his victims few people knew of Magnussen's blackmail hobby.

When the police took their first tottering steps along the road to solving a murder they nearly always began with the victim's inner circle, murderers being statistically more likely to be someone known to the victim. With whom had Mary associated that closely? So many variables; so many layers of lies. He had to make certain assumptions in order to form his theories, but he had so little data against which to weigh those assumptions for validity that it felt very like guessing. He hated guessing. Still. Whinging about it wouldn't help.

People close to Mary, then. His best and currently only available source of that information was the notes he made while carrying out his best man responsibilities. It was fortunate that he neglected to delete them from his computer, because he'd wiped the information about the guests from his brain at the earliest opportunity. He opened the file containing the guest list and combed through it, taking each of Mary's guests in turn, snooping through their social media contacts, and while it took him a good share of the next hour and a half he found nothing exceptional or suspicious about any of them until he reached the ex-boyfriend. David Helser.

Treacherous lovers were notoriously rich sources of information for enemies; Helser was self-evidently no criminal prodigy himself, but would he turn to someone who was? Someone who would pay for information? A search of his banking records turned up nothing, however: No extraordinary debts or deposits other than the paycheck from his work as assistant manager of a dry cleaning shop, and Sherlock, in replaying their admittedly brief interactions, recalled nothing to suggest anger or vindictiveness toward Mary. On the contrary, the man was clearly still smitten with her, jealous of John, and would have been delighted to resume the affair.

Bridesmaids...No luck there. Janine Hawkins...Janine was the closest thing to a girlfriend Mary had and she worked for Magnussen, yet she'd 'dated' Sherlock for a month and still not told Mary about their dalliance, such as it was. Eager, salacious gossip about men: Wasn't that de rigueur between female friends? Virtually mandatory? If Janine and Mary weren't close enough for that sort of idiot yammering there was no reason to think that Janine had any insight into Mary's criminal history that she'd carried to her boss. Besides, Sherlock had successfully tricked her not only into dating him, but into believing that he was proposing marriage to her. Clearly had no idea who'd cold-cocked her the night of the shooting: _I'll give your love to John and Mary_ , she said to him when she visited his hospital room, and while admittedly it was an odd thing to say-John had been at the hospital non-stop and Mary visited regularly-it also didn't argue for a high degree of penetration on Janine's part.

In frustration he leant back in the chair, forgetting-again-to guard himself, and the resulting stab in his ribs made him grunt and go white with pain. His timing was particularly poor: John was just coming up the steps with the shopping, looking tired and drawn. Sherlock was not the only one who'd been sleeping a lot since his discharge from hospital: The time John spent virtually living there, combined with his unresolved confusion and distress over Mary, left him wrung out and exhausted.

Now he set the bags on the kitchen table and glanced over at Sherlock, who composed his expression as well as he could.

"You okay?" John asked.

"No," Sherlock admitted.

John considered him: He couldn't have been up for more than an hour or so, but he was clearly fatigued and in pain, compensating as he sat, and it didn't take a consulting detective to see the paper cup of untouched meds. In addition to making Sherlock sleepy, at effective doses the painkillers took the edge off his mental acuity, and John suspected that he was also wary of becoming dependent on them, caution for which John honoured him even though medically he knew that his friend's concern was unsound and even at cross-purposes to his recovery. He'd already provided Sherlock with the facts, however, and berating him not only wouldn't help but was virtually guaranteed to be counterproductive.

John washed his hands at the kitchen sink, then approached Sherlock. "Let's have a look," he said.

The procedure was routine by now: John was assiduous about inspecting the incision twice each day, and Sherlock held his t-shirt out of the way so John could peel the dressing back and peer critically at the nearly 25 cm-long wound and its line of staples. There was still some bruising at the proximal end in particular, but no heat or redness and it was healing to John's satisfaction.

"It burns under my shoulder," Sherlock offered, when John sat back, "and inside feels...wrong. I don't think they put everything back where it's supposed to be."

John smiled. "They did," he said, "but the guy was in there rooting around with both hands. That sensation will resolve eventually."

"You mean live with it."

"No, I mean it's normal. So's the pain, but the better we control it the easier your recovery will be. You won't do yourself any favors by skipping doses, and you have to let me know what you're feeling so I can manage it."

A non-committal grunt that made no promises was all he got in reply to that.

"Have I mentioned how lucky you are that the pain's not far worse?"

"No more than fifty times a day," Sherlock said.

"It doesn't help from where you're sitting," John said, "but I can't tell you how glad I am that you drew Bramlage. He studied in the States. In Chicago."

Sherlock wasn't interested in the surgeon's CV. "I can't walk from the bedroom to the bathroom without running out of air," he said.

"Also normal," John told him. "It'll be a couple more weeks before that's not the case."

"Should I still be sleeping so much?"

"You should be sleeping more."

"Boring."

"What about the incision itself? How's that feel? Sore?"

"Yes," Sherlock said. "Where it's not numb."

"Yeah," John said. "The numbness might be permanent, or it might resolve eventually. Ready to have the staples out, though?" he asked.

Sherlock blinked in surprise. "Beyond ready."

"Take those, then," John said of the meds, and Sherlock, his work on the wedding guest list at a standstill anyway, complied without objection.

"The light's better here than in your room," John decided. "Go lie down on the sofa," he added, when he'd helped Sherlock to his feet. He washed up and put the shopping away, giving the painkillers time to take effect. Then he collected his equipment, sat on the coffee table, woke Sherlock, and took him through the process: Sherlock was far more tolerant of these procedures when he knew what to expect, so John explained the three Betadine swabs, showed him the staple remover and the adhesive strips that would replace the staples, and ended by warning him that when the staples were out he needed to be careful not to open the incision with incautious movement. "It's not supposed to hurt," he added about the removal process as he drew on a pair of blue exam gloves. "It might tug or sting a bit, but they look in good shape and ought to come out pretty easily. Rest your right arm here, out of the way." He patted the end of the sofa.

Sherlock braced for the first staple while trying not to look as though he was bracing for it. "Okay?" John asked when it was out.

"Mm," Sherlock said noncommittally, but John's technique was deft and gentle, so when three more staples went by the board in the same painless fashion he returned to the problem of Magnussen's source. "Mary's friends," he began.

John frowned. "Yes?"

"Other than who came to the wedding. Who does she see?"

"No one," John said. "We hardly go out."

"Not 'we,'" Sherlock said. "Mary. Who are her friends? Who is she close to?"

"No one."

"No one?"

"She doesn't 'go out,' not like you mean," John said as he worked. "Besides, with the baby..." That was a sore point, and he stopped.

Sherlock pressed on. "There's no one she emails, or phones, or stays in contact with, gossips with?"

"I know what you mean," John said. "And no, there isn't. She's friendly with the neighbors and people at work, but there's no one really close, like a girlfriend or anything. I suppose Janine's the nearest thing, but they don't see each other that much."

"Janine didn't even tell her I was dating her," Sherlock mused.

"You weren't dating her," John growled. "You were using her. Bit of an expert on that, now." Four staples later he said, "Why are you asking?"

"I want to know the source of Magnussen's information about her," Sherlock said. "It's most likely someone very close to her. None of her guests at the wedding qualify. I checked."

"That what you were doing on the computer?"

"Mm."

"Lean toward me a bit," John said, and Sherlock shifted himself to give John better access to the staples under his right shoulder. "What difference does it make who told him? He knows."

"It might not make any," Sherlock admitted, his voice muffled behind his arm. "But someone with that knowledge about her recognized it as valuable to someone like Magnussen and knew that he deals in that sort of information. That suggests a person who moves in or at least encounters certain social circles."

"Mycroft's."

"Well, yes, but I was thinking more of criminal circles."

"Mycroft's politicians, then."

"I admire your cynicism, John, but think more street-level."

"Didn't look to me like anyone at the wedding fell into that category."

"You were paying even less attention than usual," Sherlock said. "But as it happens, it didn't seem like that to me, either. That's why I wanted another look." He paused, thinking. "Women gossip about men," he continued after a moment. "But Janine didn't tell Mary. Doesn't that seem odd?"

"Not really. Why would a woman admit she was dating you?"

"It would make her look brilliant."

"The word you want is masochistic," John said, dropping the last of the staples into a small sharps container. Using a square of gauze he blotted off the excess antiseptic, then reached for the packet of adhesive strips. "You can shower with these," he said as he applied them, "but they're not as strong as staples and you want to be careful it doesn't dehisce. Open," he added, when Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "Be extra careful for the next week when you do your PT, too."

Sherlock sighed. The physical therapy exercises were painful and annoying and the multiple daily sessions left him exasperated and cross, but John had assured him that they were the fastest route to anything like a full recovery, so he imposed them on himself ruthlessly, with a grim persistence that surprised even John, familiar though he was with Sherlock's fortitude.

Once the strips were in place John secured a large gauze dressing over the incision, then peeled off his gloves and helped Sherlock to sit up. "Better, yeah?" he observed, when a flicker of surprise crossed Sherlock's face.

"Much," Sherlock agreed.

"Hungry?" John asked.

"No."

"Good. Then go to bed. Come on." He stood and pushed the coffee table out of the way. Sherlock put up his left arm and John ducked under it and straightened slowly, easing him to his feet. Sherlock hesitated, shook his head. "Dizzy?" John asked. "Slowly, then."

"Got it," Sherlock said after a few paces. "Left, right, repeat," and he made it the rest of the way under his own power. Carefully settling himself on his left side and grateful for the absence of the staples, he closed his eyes but kept an ear cocked toward the kitchen, following John's movements-washing his hands again, making himself lunch-but far from breaking in on Sherlock's thoughts the homely sounds soothed him. As his breathing steadied and his pounding pulse returned to normal, and well before he could resolve any of the questions that tormented him, he sank into sleep.

ooooo

Three hours later Sherlock awoke and again lay listening. The usual muffled urban sounds filtered through the windows but there was only silence from the flat. The absence of aggravating rustling and humming from Mrs. Hudson told him that John was in. Sleeping or reading, most likely. Reluctantly Sherlock sat up. It was impossible to do so or to get out of bed without causing himself pain, and after three hours the last meds he took were nearing the end of their effectiveness. As a rule John wasn't shy about waking him from a sound sleep to take them on schedule, either. For someone so opposed to Sherlock's use of recreational narcotics, his enthusiasm for painkillers bordered on mania.

Just now, though, John was in his chair by the fireplace with an unread magazine in his hand, brooding and staring into the flames. He wanted desperately to know what Sherlock thought was going on, but he was having enough trouble keeping him reined in as it was. The detective tolerated the pain of his injury far better than he did the enforced inactivity and concomitant boredom, and the last thing he needed was another reason not to rest. Instead John let him work at his own pace, up to a point, knowing that as always, Sherlock would share when he could.

He turned when he heard Sherlock enter the kitchen. Sherlock swallowed the meds John left on the kitchen table, then said, "You did say showering's allowed?"

"Yeah. Hang on, I'll get the dressings off. There," John added, when he'd gently peeled off the gauze covering the incisions.

Sherlock hesitated. The thought of going through the whole routine daunted him, but then he drew himself up resignedly and limped into the bathroom. He felt marginally better once he was cleaned up, and he carefully dressed himself in pajama bottoms and a clean t-shirt with slightly less grief than the last time he tried it. Progress. John tapped the jamb, came in with a clean dressing and taped him up again, then left him alone.

There was half of a ham sandwich waiting on the kitchen table when Sherlock emerged again, and although he gave serious consideration to ignoring it he ultimately decided that it was easier to stop and eat than carry on all the way to the living room. Besides, it would be one less thing to dismay John. Too hard to get in and out of the chair, though, so he stood there and ate reluctantly, then shuffled to the living room table and opened his laptop. For a minute or two he sat panting, then asked, "Your mobile phone account. Which of you pays the bills for that?"

"We split it," John said, and Sherlock displayed a flash of impatience.

"No, which of you actually goes online and makes the payment each month?"

"Oh. Mary, usually."

"Usually?"

"Always, I guess. She says it makes her feel more in the loop. Why?"

"Do you know how to access it?"

"Sure," John said. "It's a joint account. Uh, the user name is my email address, and the password's-" He stopped.

"What?"

"Watsons814." The month and year of his wedding, now another reminder of what he'd lost. "Why, what are you looking for?"

Sherlock answered with another question. "The lock code for her phone is two four seven two, correct?"

Bafflement. "How do you know that?"

Sherlock woke the computer, found the website, and typed the username and password without comment while John watched over his shoulder. "What are you looking for?" he asked again.

"There's nothing here," Sherlock decided with a frown. "Tell me about the clinic's mobile phone policy."

"Their...?"

"Every office has one. Come on."

"Uh...Well, we're not allowed to have the ringer on when we're on duty. Is that what you mean?"

"But the phone can remain on your person?"

"Yeah, sure. They don't make you turn them in or anything. The ringer just has to be off, or the phone has to be in airplane mode or on vibrate."

"Where does Mary keep hers?"

"Pocket of her smock, usually," John said. "Sherlock-"

The doorbell rang: Mrs. Hudson's, because Sherlock destroyed his own. "Dammit," John said. "That's the electrician. Something about the sconces. I promised Mrs. Hudson I'd supervise."

"You don't know anything about electrical repair."

"I know what a sconce is," John replied. "Here's your phone" -moving it to within his reach- "I'll have mine on. Call me if you need anything."

Before John reached the landing Sherlock was texting. _Baker St. Now. Avoid John._ Four minutes later he heard Bill Wiggins sidling up the stairs. This would represent suspicious promptitude if Wiggins hadn't already posted himself a day ago and at Sherlock's request in Baker Street, a block south of the flat. Just before Wiggins stepped in Sherlock sat up straighter and did what he could to appear perfectly healthy and alert.

It was effort wasted. Wiggins blinked in surprise at the sight of him. "Oi, Shezza," he said, approaching, "I got somethin' for pain in 'ere somewheres..." He patted his pockets in turn. "Let you 'ave the first one 'alf price, seein' it's you."

"I live with a doctor," Sherlock pointed out. "And he doesn't cut my drugs with talcum powder."

"Oh, yeah, right. In that case, you wanna share?"

"No."

"Well, I ain't sucking up to no medico, now, am I?" Wiggins sulked.

Sherlock sighed and picked up his wallet. "Thirty pounds," he said, holding up the notes between his fore and middle fingers. "Please tell me that's enough to make you shut up and listen."

"Ample, mate," Wiggins said eagerly, lighting up.

"Don't call me that. The Royal Free Hospital clinic. You know it?"

"Yeah, sure." Wiggins brightened still more. "Me and my mates-"

"Don't care," Sherlock cut him off. "Mary Watson works there. I want to see the contents of her phone. You will find the best pickpocket you know to pose as a patient there. I don't care what he claims as a complaint as long as it can be attempted to be believed. Hep C should do it. She keeps the phone in the pocket of her clinic smock. When you have the phone you will access the app list in her settings, then take a screen shot and email the images to me. Then you will do the same for the call history. Repeat those instructions."

"Well, let's see," Wiggins said slowly. "Mickey's the best dip north of the river. 'E likes to do business by Saint Pancras, an' that's on the way, or as near as. So I find 'im, offer to cut 'im in, and then we goes up to the clinic where we find Mrs. Watson and liberate 'er mobile, like. I make a snap of 'er app list an' 'er call history an' pass it on to you."

"When you've finished with that, pick up a burner with a prepaid plan and bring it back here." He passed Wiggins another twenty pound note. "I hope it goes without saying that you can't allow Mary to see you. Does it?"

"Does it what?"

"Go without saying."

"She'll never even know I was there," Wiggins said. "I'm like a ghost who stalks-"

"Shut up. When you've finished you will delete the screen shots you take and the emails you send. Clear?"

"Clear."

"Do you have any questions?"

"Yeah, mate-I mean, yeah, I do. What if 'er phone's password-protected?"

"The code is two four seven two," Sherlock said. Wiggins' lips moved as he committed the number to memory. "Shall I write all four digits down?" Sherlock asked dryly.

"No, I got it," Wiggins said. He paused briefly, but Sherlock fixed him with a look of cold reserve and Wiggins wasn't bold enough to say anything else, so he departed without further comment.

Once he'd gone Sherlock sagged visibly; he used most of what was left of his energy to relocate to his fireside chair, where he was awoken not quite an hour later by the ringing of his phone: Wiggins.

"Yes," he said.

"Did you get it?"

"Yes," Sherlock lied. "Wait." He opened his email and glanced through the screen shot of the app list. One immediately leapt out at him: LineToo, which he knew to be a cloud-based app for adding a second line to a mobile phone. This was how Mary maintained contact with someone-he didn't know who-without John being aware, because it didn't work through their regular mobile network and therefore would never be billed to it. Mary would have provided a credit card number-most likely of an account John knew nothing about-to the service and John would never know the difference.

"Go to the phone's home page," Sherlock said. "Look for something called LineToo."

After a pause Wiggins said, "Got it."

"Open it."

"It wants a password. Same as the other one? Two four seven two?"

"Try it."

"No go, Shezza. Maybe it wants letters an' numbers."

"Try 'a-g-r-a-two four seven two.' If that doesn't work-"

"I'm in," Wiggins said. "Now what?"

"Find the app's call history," Sherlock said, "and send me a screen shot."

A few minutes later his phone chimed with the incoming email and he glanced down the list of calls. Not very many, maybe two or three each month, on average, and always to and from the same number. He sent the image to the printer.

"Clear out those photos and the emails you just sent and get rid of the phone," he told Wiggins. "Return it to the exam room and leave it on the floor so she'll think it fell out of her pocket. Don't forget the burner." He ended the call.

ooooo

When John reached the landing and saw that Sherlock had a visitor he stopped in surprise, but that shifted abruptly to annoyance when he recognized Bill Wiggins. In the young man's hand was a paper shopping bag, the sort with cord handles, and he was chatting with Sherlock, who was in his fireside chair. To be strictly accurate,Wiggins was chatting _at_ him. Sherlock was stuffing a couple of bank notes into his wallet and John drew the obvious conclusion.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded, and pointed at the paper bag. "I swear to God, if you're bringing him drugs I will drop you head first down the stairwell."

"Afternoon, Doc," Wiggins said politely. "You're looking well."

"What's in the damned bag?"

"Supper," Wiggins said, approaching with an ingratiating air and holding the handles of the paper bag apart so John could see the styrofoam containers inside. "An' it ain't for Shezza. It's for you." He carried it to the kitchen table and pulled the cartons out. Nothing to see here. Just some innocent Chinese takeaway. "Shezza said you might like a night off a' cookin', is all."

John continued to bristle suspiciously. Glared at Wiggins, then at Sherlock. "This was _your_ idea."

A shrug. "Why is that so hard to believe?"

"History," John said.

"No, 'e did," Wiggins said. "'E says you been runnin' yourself ragged, carin' for 'im an' all, an' 'e's that grateful-"

"Get out," John snapped.

"Never embellish a lie," Sherlock advised.

"Noted," Wiggins said, then smiled obsequiously at John and put his hand out, palm up. "I ain't the Red Cross, am I?"

John stared at him, then reached into his pocket. "For God's sake," he growled.

"No," Sherlock said.

John glanced at him, then at Wiggins, then back at Sherlock. "You already paid him?" he said with renewed outrage.

Wiggins was unapologetic. "Hey, you can't blame a bloke for tryin', Doc," he said. "Some of us 'ave to score our own meds. We can't all 'ave a doctor in residence, and there's _some_ selfish buggers that ain't 'eard 'bout sharin' bein' a virtue." This with a significant look at Sherlock.

"Thank you, Billy," Sherlock said smoothly. "That'll be all for now."

Wiggins glanced at John, still standing in the kitchen with his arms folded, glowering at him. "Yeah, I'll be goin'," he said. "Big 'do at the palace, anyways, an' I'm late." He strolled off as John glared after him.

"John," Sherlock said, before John could bitch about Wiggins. He had to repeat himself twice more before he got John's attention, then held out the printed screen shots of Mary's phone. "I need you to look at these."

John took the pages, sat down opposite Sherlock. "What are they?"

"They're screen shots taken from Mary's phone. Look at the call histories. Do you recognize all those numbers?"

"Not really," John said, leafing through them. "But smart phones mean no one has to learn numbers any more. This one's the clinic, though. That's Mrs. Phillips across the way. This one's mine, obviously."

"Make a note of the ones you can identify," Sherlock said.

John found a pen and when he finished scribbling notes in the margins Sherlock said, "My laptop. Look up the numbers you didn't recognize." John eyed him but did as he was asked-it was obvious that he wasn't going to get an answer anyway-and he handed Sherlock the list when he'd finished.

Sherlock leafed through it. "Are all these legitimate?" he asked. "People or businesses she'd have the usual reasons for calling? Ones that you're familiar with?"

"Yeah, why? What are you doing?"

Sherlock didn't answer directly, of course. "Look up this number," he said, and read it off.

"London," John said, having entered it in the search engine. "Unlisted."

Sherlock motioned for silence, then dialed the number using the disposable phone. A woman's voice answered. Suspicious. "Hello?"

Sherlock clapped the phone closed and John watched in dismay as he went out of focus again: There was no telling how long he'd be gone when he did that. "Sherlock, who did you just call? Who was that? What the hell was Wiggins doing here?"

Sherlock refocused on him with an effort. "Mary dialed that number four times last month, and received three incoming calls from it."

John shrugged. "And?"

Sherlock scanned through the printed images again, then looked up. "You don't recognize it?"

"No. Why, whose is it? Where'd you get it? It's not on this call history."

"She made and received calls to that number only through a voice-over-internet app. Never through the Vodafone account she shares with you."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Look," Sherlock said, and John got up to peer over his shoulder at the printouts. Sherlock showed him the other emailed photo, the one of Mary's app list. "That's a screen shot of the apps on Mary's phone. You see the one called LineToo? It's a cloud service that allows users to establish a second line on a mobile phone. Any calls she made or received on that line wouldn't show up in the call history of the Vodafone account that you share, because it uses voice-over-internet technology, not mobile phone towers." He showed John a second page. "Her LineToo call history. Just that one number."

"Well...Whose number is it?"

"Janine Hawkins's."

"I don't get it," John said. "She's keeping a private second line on her phone to talk to Janine? What for?"

"I'm not sure," Sherlock admitted, unhappy about it. "But we're making bricks, and information is our clay."


	4. Chapter 4

**Monday, 13 October 2014**

" _S'arreter la_ ," Sherlock said to his driver, and the cab swung to the kerb outside an undistinguished grey concrete two-story office building in a commercial district a kilometre west of the Brussels International Airport. " _Attendre. Je ne serai pas longue_."

He stepped to the door and rang the bell for admission. On the narrow sidelight was a small, easily-missed sign inscribed 'Century Executive Solutions.' It was a vague enough name that could mean almost anything, but in fact it represented the public face of an expensive private security firm providing drivers and bodyguards for executives and politicians. Sherlock knew that its true _raison d'etre_ was to supply what were known in the trade as contract operators: Men, usually British and American former special forces troops, who served as bodyguards, drivers, and security teams for envoys, ambassadors, and spies in some of the world's roughest corners, notably North Africa and the Middle East. CES was also one link in a more obscure chain for those seeking mercenaries to conduct private wars in places like Angola, Bolivia, and Sierra Leone, but that function was less widely known.

The company's owner and the man Sherlock had an appointment to see was Colonel David Sutko, USMC (retired), a former Green Beret. Sherlock first made contact with Sutko in Bucharest, when he saved the lives of Sutko and a four-man team the colonel was leading there. Quite inadvertently, as it happened, but it hadn't cost Sherlock anything to forward the information he'd obtained about their client's identity as a double agent for the Zemun clan of the Serbian mafia, and Sutko had been Sherlock's grateful admirer ever since. And recruiter. He never passed up an opportunity to urge Sherlock to come to work for him.

As he welcomed Sherlock into his office his demeanor was friendly but somewhat formal: Sherlock's aloof, self-contained bearing would have made cordiality on Sutko's part jarringly inappropriate. Dealing with alpha males of Sherlock's temperament was Sutko's day job, though, and he adjusted himself without having to think about it. While he still looked as fit as the day he exited boot camp, his haircut and clothing-crisp button-down shirt, tie, and trousers-were unexceptional: He would not be taken for ex-military at a casual or even at a second glance, and no one would look twice at him on the streets of this or any other European city.

It would surprise John Watson, Sherlock thought, to see him forego an opportunity to show off, but Sutko was neither the police nor a client. He was an intelligent, dangerous man, the kind who used terms like 'kill zone' as easily as others said 'drinks night.' So Sherlock did not show off. He concealed himself, and he knew that Sutko, while genuinely grateful to him, did the same.

"Mr. Holmes," Sutko said, standing as Sherlock was shown in following a thorough pat-down by the well-armed secretary. "It's good to see you. Come in. Sit down."

Sherlock shook his hand but remained standing and Sutko said, "Getting in and out of a chair still hurts." It was a statement, not a question. "You'll have to live with that for a while."

"So my doctor tells me." Admitting it made him look less foolish than showing chagrin that Sutko perceived his weakness. Of course, perceiving weakness was how Sutko made his living.

The Marine reached into his desk drawer and withdrew a photo of Mary, put it down on the desk, and slid it across to Sherlock, who, he noticed with approval, was eying the framed photos behind the desk-not because he was interested in Sutko's Marine Corps buddies, but because he was establishing which one offered the best reflection through which to view the door at his back.

"Took a little digging," Sutko said, "but someone recognized your girlfriend."

"She's not my-"

"Figure of speech," Sutko said. "Lot of people looking for that one. You want payback for who hit you, I wouldn't recommend using her even if I knew where to find her. Not my line, anyway, but if you insist I can ask around."

"I don't want to hire her. I want to know who she is."

"Elizabeth Camden. Started out legit CIA but liked the job a little too much. Last anyone heard she was on loan to MI6 up in your neighborhood. Late 2006. Some kind of black bag assignment. Little fuzzy on the details. You should ask your brother," he finished with a smile.

Sherlock didn't respond with the slightest flicker. It was just Sutko's way of trying to figure out why he wanted the information. He took the photo, slipped it into his pocket. "And?"

A shrug. "And disappeared. Could be dead for all anyone knows."

"People disappear for other reasons."

"Irkutsk. 2007. You know about it?" Sherlock did not. "The regional branch of the bratva-you familiar?"

"Russian mafia."

"-wanted to hit a politician that was giving them fits. They hired the job out. The guy was notoriously hard to reach and he'd already beat several attempts, but this time they used a woman. She substituted herself for the politician's new au pair arriving from Sweden, and when she'd successfully integrated herself into his life she killed him. Mission accomplished, right? Thing was, she didn't wait until the guy was alone before she pulled the trigger. She took out the rest of the family along with him: wife, three kids, even the fucking dog. The kulaks went apeshit and even the Russian cops got off their asses for a while. The public outrage against the bratva made things pretty hot for them for a couple of months. Pissed off the _pakhan_ so much that he held back the final installment of her fee. About a week after that his _sovietnik_ -you know the word?"

"Second-in-command," Sherlock said.

"Yeah. His _sovietnik_ and the guy's two _byki_ were assassinated on the road to Angarsk. Shit happens, but what makes it interesting is _how_ they were hit."

He obviously expected Sherlock to ask, but Sherlock just stared at him with his expressionless pale eyes and waited him out. Sutko smiled. "Single RA round through all three of them. Word is the closest usable sniper perch from that particular spot was about 800 metres from the highway. The _closest_ one, and the police found no evidence that the killer even used that location."

"The police frequently find no evidence even when it exists."

"Yeah, I guess you'd know."

"The bratva's still looking for this woman."

"Has been ever since. She pinged your radar, huh? You got a line on her, that could make you rich."

"If I had a line on her I wouldn't be here. Where did she go after 2007?"

"Don't know. If I did I'd be sitting poolside in Palm Springs sipping mojitos, not cooling my heels in this commie garden spot." Sherlock didn't respond, and Sutko said, "I don't know what this broad's done to attract your attention, Mr. Holmes, but if I were you I'd steer clear. She'll get hers in the end. The bratva has a long memory and people like her can't keep their heads down forever. They think they can. That's why they'll pay a fortune for a new ID. It's money down the crapper because people who get into that much trouble almost always find it again. You don't want to be anywhere near her when that happens."

"Would she be employable after something like Irkutsk?"

"Not by me," Sutko said at once. "Not by anyone who likes his reputation. She crossed a line. Couple of them. Not what you like to see on a resume. Don't get me wrong: The men I work with have to be ready to kill to defend the clients. If they do this job long enough it's almost inevitable. Being mentally ready for it is different from enjoying it. Very different. Guys who hire people in Camden's line prefer their psychopaths a little more...stable."

"How much money would a job like that have been worth?"

"Done right? Pfff..." Sutko leant back and considered. "Lotta variables. Value of the target, the hitter's rep, her track record, how much time she's gonna invest on the project. Say somewhere between fifty and a hundred fifty American. You do the math."

"Vague."

"Lotta variables," Sutko said again. "If you're sniffing around for work I can tell you right now you'd fall on the high end of the range."

Sherlock gave a little smile without humor. "I have a job."

"My loss," Sutko shrugged. "Anything else?"

"Thank you for your time," Sherlock said.

Sutko stood, reached across the desk, and they shook again, Sherlock more or less successfully concealing how much the movement hurt. His hand was on the doorknob when Sutko stopped him.

"Holmes," he said, and Sherlock turned. "You're never going to take a gig here; I get it. But you know what I owe you for the lives of my men. So when I tell you this it's not because there's something in it for me: The bratva is big on symbolism. Repayment in kind. Tends to make people think twice about screwing them over, you know? If this woman's alive they _will_ find her. Today. Next week. Ten years. They don't care. When they do they will destroy everyone standing next to her, like she destroyed that whole family, just to make their point. Don't be around when it happens."

ooooo

Sherlock stopped on the pavement outside CES and dialed England. "Mr. Melas. Sherlock Holmes. Have you ever considered the benefits of hacking the CIA?"

ooooo

John paced the flat with his phone in his hand and glanced again at his watch. Five more minutes, he thought, and he'd call Mycroft, tell him-the phone vibrated in his hand, making him jump, and he answered it before the ringtone activated.

"Sherlock!" he said, his voice tight with anger and anxiety. "Jesus Christ, where _are_ you?"

"Stairs," Sherlock said, sounding out of breath.

"Stairs? What-?"

"Our stairs." He rang off.

"The hell," John muttered, and glanced over the railing. Sherlock was on the first landing, sagging against the wall. His face was grey and drawn and exhaustion was evident in every line of his body. "Dammit," John said, and went quickly to him. He ducked under his left arm and supported him up the stairs. "Are you out of your damned mind? Where the hell have you been? I've been calling you all day."

"Did you call Mycroft?" Sherlock asked through clenched teeth.

"In about five minutes."

"Don't bother. I'm back."

"Where the hell were you?"

"Brussels."

John realized he was serious. "And that couldn't wait until you weren't at risk of bleeding out."

"No."

"And of course you had to go alone."

"Yes."

"At least tell me you didn't fly there two weeks after a pneumothorax."

"Train."

Once they reached their landing John helped Sherlock out of his coat. "Go to bed, you mad berk," he said. "You're going to kill yourself."

Instead Sherlock turned toward the living room, where he sank into a chair at the table, and John threw up his hands. He'd pressed his case more than once before now, made every rational argument. Repeating himself wouldn't pay off today, either. Instead he went to the kitchen and returned with a glass of water and Sherlock's pain meds, which he clapped down on the living room table, then sat down opposite Sherlock, who ignored the drugs and sat recovering his breath, dead pale and sweating.

"You going to clue me in on what was so damned important in Brussels?" John asked.

Sherlock didn't answer immediately. The information he'd discovered today would hurt John badly and he was therefore tempted to withhold it, but he'd also come to the uncomfortable conclusion that he made a real mistake-possibly the biggest of his life-when he cut John out of his Reichenbach plans. That was at Mycroft's insistence, but Sherlock couldn't entirely blame his brother. Had he not agreed with Mycroft in essence-that both John and he would be safer if John remained convinced of the lie-then he would have found a way to make contact. Had he done so, would they be in this situation, with John heartsick over the state of his marriage, Sherlock badly injured, and both of them so uncertain of the future? Unlikely.

 _Just one word, Sherlock_ , John said. Just one word to tell him that his looked-for miracle existed. John would have waited for his return, he would not have drifted, emotionally shattered, for eighteen months until he met Mary, and he would not have been susceptible to her and whatever she intended for him. Because Mary _targeted_ John; that was one thing Sherlock now knew. What he couldn't answer yet was why, and why, since she apparently meant to harm him, she hadn't already done so.

"Sherlock."

"In my coat," Sherlock said, making his decision. "There's an envelope."

John found the manila clasp envelope, brought it to the table, and set it before Sherlock, who stared at it but made no move to pick it up.

"Sherlock," John prompted again. Sherlock met his eyes and John was suddenly certain that whatever was in the envelope was going to be very hard for him to see. _Could it get any worse?_ he wondered. Sherlock obviously thought it could. "Do not cut me out of this," John warned.

Sherlock considered him a bit longer, weighing John's desire for the truth against the pain it would cause, and both of those things against the need to protect John from himself. Too much of the wrong sort of information could get him killed. "The writing on that thumb drive," he said finally.

"AGRA," John said. "Mary's initials. At least she says they are," he added bitterly, "which probably means they aren't." Sherlock didn't answer, and John said, "Are they?"

"Initials, yes," Sherlock replied. "Her name, no."

"How do you know?"

"Because her real name is Elizabeth Camden."

Just like that. He let John absorb the news for a moment, and then John said again, "How do you know?"

"I asked."

"Who?"

"Someone familiar with her sort of work."

"Someone in Brussels."

"Yes."

"What's in the envelope?" John asked grimly.

Using his left hand Sherlock slid it across the table, although John didn't pick it up. "Elizabeth Camden worked for the CIA," Sherlock said. "In January 2007, while on loan to MI6, she free-lanced a job for the Russian mafia in Irkutsk. A hit on a politician. She gained access to him by posing as his family's new Swedish au pair. I suspect but can't prove that she intercepted the real au pair and killed her in order to take her place. Once she got access to the politician she fulfilled her contract and killed him. She also killed his wife and three children. That was not part of her contract."

John went white.

Sherlock continued, his voice harsh. "The resulting bad publicity and police attention angered the Russian mob boss and he refused to pay the balance of her fee. A week later his second-in-command and two bodyguards were assassinated. The CIA and MI6 couldn't-wouldn't-protect her from the consequences, even if she'd been willing to seek their help, which she would not have been, and the Russians are very persistent. Her only option was to leave Elizabeth Camden behind and start over. As Mary Morstan."

He'd been sitting with his forearms on the table but he couldn't do it any more, and as carefully as he could leant back in the chair, gritting his teeth. "The newspaper article covering the politician's death is in there," he said of the envelope, "but it's in the original Russian. Also her employment history with the CIA. In English. Financial records."

John frowned. "How did you get all this? If she changed her identity, wouldn't she erase who she used to be, too?"

Sherlock took a moment to reply; he was just about all-in. "The man I saw today knows people who identified her from a photo I provided. For the rest of it...The Internet is forever. Mr. Melas and anyone else with the right skills could uncover it. It took him the space of this afternoon, after I told him where to start looking."

John was quiet for a time, looking at the envelope, but still he didn't touch it. When he was reasonably sure that his voice wouldn't betray him he looked up. Sherlock was watching him, of course, but with none of his wonted verve, while the sympathy in his eyes was more distressing than reassuring.

"An entire family."

"Yes."

"This is Magnussen's leverage over her, the stuff she said would send her to prison for life."

"Yes." So much for his new policy of not causing John pain. "I'm sorry," he said.

John shook his head. "No," he said, his expression hard. "Don't. It's what I needed to know." He took a deep breath, exhaled. It had been a while, but he'd called on this part of himself before: the part that set the pain aside for later because someone else still needed him. Mary was beyond his reach now. The man across the table from him was not.

He stood. "Come on, mate," he said. "Before I have to carry you."

ooooo

John stood in the living room, staring at the envelope on the table. He already knew what he'd find there, but he was deeply reluctant to look at the contents because doing so would make it all real. The dissolution of his marriage. The evidence that the Mary Morstan he knew never existed, the confirmation that whatever affection he still felt for her was now insanity to entertain. As with the thumb drive, he wanted nothing more than to evade the reality of it, but he'd never been able to lie to himself like that. Besides, he knew all too well what it cost Sherlock to get this information for him. He took the envelope from the table and went to his fireside chair.

As usual, Sherlock had been thorough. It was all there: The proof of everything he said, not that John had doubted it. The photocopied Tass newspaper clipping, Mary's employment history with the CIA: dates, employee ID number, salary, pension account information, even a copy of her employee ID photo. Some fifteen years younger, he estimated, with her naturally light brown, shoulder-length hair gathered in a ponytail. John preferred it blond. A handful of other newspaper articles, some in English, reporting the unsolved murders of politicians, drug lords, spies, and apparently unexceptional civilians. Finally a short obituary notice from the _New York Times_ dated February 7, 2007, indicating that Elizabeth Camden, 36, died in Lenox Hill Hospital following a brief, unspecified illness.

People changed, they grew apart, they outgrew each other. John was an adult and he knew that, but that wasn't what happened to him. His estrangement wasn't gradual, something that he could see coming and inure himself to or armour himself against. This was a brutal sucker-punch in the face, gratuitous and inexplicable.

It was incredibly difficult to switch off a deep emotion that developed over time. _Sherlock could do it_ , John reflected. _I can't_. The documentation he was holding in his hand: It was his new reality. Mary was a fraud from the moment he met her, and now he held proof that she was an inveterate killer as well. He knew soldiers with high body counts who went home to love their wives and children, and he knew that while it required a great deal of introspection, fortitude, and moral clarity, it was nevertheless possible for that dual nature to exist in one man or woman.

But Mary wasn't a soldier in a hot zone. She was a hired assassin who tracked her victims over time and with cold deliberation, and she didn't limit her casualties to her immediate targets, either. Irkutsk. Jesus Christ. Based on the information in the envelope she'd killed sixteen people-or at least sixteen of her kills were reported in the press. God knew how many deaths she was really responsible for. Should she even be running around loose, if she was responsible for all those deaths? Should he be on the phone to the police? Why was he letting Sherlock direct whatever the hell was going on? Because he let Sherlock direct everything, he thought bitterly, and because evaluating the situation as 'whatever the hell was going on' proved he didn't have the tools for decision-making.

The thought that Mary was carrying his child was yet another source of torment. If he was determined that the marriage itself was over, what about the baby? What about divorce? What about suing her for custody? Was the pregnancy even real? What if that was a lie, as well? It was the first time this idea had struck him, but while it was distressing it was no longer unthinkable, either, in light of everything else he knew. He might be a doctor, but women deceived their husbands on that count every day. Sherlock spotted the signs of her pregnancy at the wedding, John remembered, but Sherlock wasn't infallible either and Mary'd proven herself capable of deceiving him, to a point. What if Sherlock, distracted as he was by the strain of spending ten consecutive hours not being an anti-social arse, made a mistake? It would explain why John missed all the signs if there weren't any signs to see.

Psychopaths manipulated people for a living. With the evidence he had on hand John was willing to ascribe that diagnosis to Mary, but not being a psychopath himself he couldn't imagine how any agenda of hers could be served by Sherlock thinking her pregnant.

If she were faking the pregnancy would she then fake a miscarriage? If Sherlock had died, would John ever have learned the truth about who shot him? Would she have remained in the marriage? He couldn't get his head around those questions, couldn't begin to imagine a reason why she'd worm her way into his life for the purpose of deceiving him like that, and the more he thought about it the fewer answers and the more questions he had. He was both too cynical and insufficiently vain to still believe that her attachment to him had anything to do with him for his own sake. She was a psychopath and he was her tool, somehow, for accomplishing something he couldn't imagine.

He made himself read through the documents again. All of them. Every word. Then put everything back in the envelope and dropped the envelope on the side table and stared into the fire's dying embers.

Despite all his questions there were a few absolutes with which he could work. Mary wasn't who she said she was. She'd lied about herself since the day he met her. It was not an accident that she was working at the clinic and that she attached herself to him. She was not in his life because she loved him. Whatever she was doing, whatever her motive was for passing herself off as a nurse and insinuating herself into his life, it wasn't benevolent. There was no benevolent way to commit that level of fraud. Everything she'd ever shown him, then, was a lie, and not lies made with his best interests at heart. Whatever her life was before she met him she'd not left it behind, because just four weeks ago she'd shot Sherlock.

There was a lot he didn't know and might never know, but that was enough for one definitive act. He slipped the wedding ring from his finger.


	5. Chapter 5

**Tuesday, 14 October 2014**

A little before noon Sherlock emerged from his room, very eager for his meds, and went straight for the kitchen cabinet where they were kept. It was unusual for John not to have woken him to take the next dose, but it didn't surprise him, either: John had a full plate last night. A glance into the main room revealed the envelope on the end table beside John's chair and John himself, insensible under a blanket on the sofa and obviously having made a late night of it.

Sherlock made coffee and sat at the kitchen table, thinking and feeling the meds kick in. Twenty-seven minutes later John stirred and sat up with a groan. An hour after that, showered, shaved, and looking somewhat more human, he joined Sherlock at the kitchen table.

"You okay?" they asked each other at the same time.

"Peachy," Sherlock said.

"Yeah. What I was going to say."

"The thumb drive," Sherlock said. Straight to business.

John got up, took it from the mantel, and handed it over.

Thoughtfully Sherlock turned the little device over in his hands, then set it down on the table between them. John watched him closely, wondering what he was thinking, but didn't prompt him. After a few minutes Sherlock said, "This writing."

"Yeah?"

"Does anything about it strike you as interesting?"

"All capital letters," John said. "That's normal for initials. Only the first two letters are followed by a period. That's all I can see. Is that interesting?"

Sherlock didn't answer. "AGRA," he muttered.

"You think it's significant, that only the first two letters have periods?"

"Possibly. It's not her name, so it might be a title...or...a job description. A slogan...a motto...a nickname. Make a list: What can you think of with those initials?"

"Not much besides the city in India," John said. He retrieved his laptop from the living room and set it up on the kitchen table. "Besides that there's the Arizona Gay Rodeo Association...Although, thinking about it, that one's probably a dead end...Looks like two American towns by that name, in Oklahoma and Kansas. Couple of agricultural supply companies, one in the States and one in Namibia." He looked up. "That's about it."

"Take AG first," Sherlock said. "Everything you can think of that's abbreviated that way, no matter how unlikely it might seem."

They each scribbled their ideas on scraps of paper, then read them off in turn. "Avant garde," Sherlock said, "elemental silver, algebraic graph, Australia Group, aktiengesellschaft, automotive group."

John offered "Antigen, air-to-ground, adjutant general, army group, anastamosis group, annoying git. "Pretty sure we can cross off that last one," he said. "Any of those sound likely?"

"Not yet. RA." Then, when he'd completed his list: "Restricted area, restricted access, Rankine scale, radium, rate of appearance, Republic of Armenia, rechstanwalt."

"Gesundheit."

"It means 'attorney' in German. Now yours."

"Regular army, radial artery, right atrium, research associate, regional anesthesia, receptor antagonist-"

"Forget the medical terms," Sherlock said, displaying his first flash of impatience.

"Why? She's been pretending to be a nurse for almost two years."

Sherlock reconsidered. "Conceded."

"Royal Artillery," John added. "Royal Army, Raufoss, Rebel Alliance."

"Rebel Alliance?"

"Pop culture reference. Star Wars. We watched it. Sort of." Blank stare. "You kept pausing it to point out all the scientific mistakes."

"The one where the spaceships make engine noise in the vacuum of space?"

"They all do that, but yeah. What about the military references?" John asked. "Assassins don't just grow on trees. They're almost always military-trained."

"There's no record of her having served."

"Well...maybe Elizabeth Camden isn't her real name, either."

"It is. I checked. Well, I _had_ it checked."

"And you're sure she's American, then?"

"The CIA was. They'll recruit foreigners as assets or moles, but they don't hire them as agents and won't accept someone who approaches them first. I imagine she received her firearms training from them." He reached over-carefully, with his left hand-and took the list from John. "What's Raufoss?"

"An ammunition company."

Sherlock looked at him curiously. "Making sniper rounds."

"Yeah. How'd you know that?"

"Something Sutko said. The man I saw yesterday. Tell me about it."

"Well, it's a popular ammo," John said. "The Americans-" He stopped. Sherlock was staring at him, suddenly tense and expectant, and John knew they were both thinking the same thing: An American. An assassin. Raufoss.

"What about the Americans?" Sherlock asked.

John braced himself and continued, giving Sherlock everything he knew about the ammunition. "The Americans use it a lot. Their Barrett sniper rifles take it. It's made by a Norwegian company called Nammo. Well, it is now, but it was originally made by Raufoss Ammunition, or whatever the word for 'ammunition' is in Norwegian, and guys still refer to them as RA rounds. It's armour-piercing. Fifty cal with a tungsten core. It's used to detonate unexploded ordnance, among other things. The International Red Cross keeps trying to have it banned for anti-personnel use, but there aren't actually any laws or treaties against it, and it's popular as hell with snipers."

"Why would the Red Cross care what you use to shoot someone in the head?" Sherlock asked. "He won't be any more or less dead."

"Yeah, but a twenty-two long rifle cartridge won't take out the three guys standing next to your target," John said. "The Raufoss is an incendiary, explosive round. It has to go thirty to forty centimetres through the target before it explodes, which in practice means it'll usually penetrate the body and exit before it detonates, but at the right angle it can travel that far _before_ it exits. Then when it detonates the fallout-the fragmentation-can kill anyone within about a thirty degree vector around the exit wound."

"You've seen that?"

"Never had a front-row seat, but I've seen the results afterward, yeah."

"The assassination of the mobster and his 'bulls'-his bodyguards-in Irkutsk," Sherlock said.

"Yeah?"

"Only one round was fired, but it killed all three of them. 'A single RA round,' Sutko said."

"Jesus," John said, deeply shocked, and leant back in the chair. "That fits, doesn't it?" he said.

"It's a plausible candidate. We should keep it in mind." Sherlock turned again to the list. "A.G..." He crossed off a couple of obvious non-starters. "Attorney general, army group, air-to-ground, adjutant general," he said.

"Attorney general's a lawyer," John said.

"Obviously." Sherlock drew a line through it. The military associations appeared increasingly likely now. "Army group?"

"Uh, a set of field armies," John said. "The biggest field organization under a single commander, like a field marshal or a full general."

Sherlock wrote a question mark next to it. "Air-to-ground?"

"Aircraft ordnance," John said. "Anything shot from an aircraft to the surface. Guns, bombs, missiles."

"Adjutant general."

"A senior officer. Usually a captain. They get field rank-seniority over all the other captains. The colonel-the commanding officer-commands a battle, but the AG controls it. He's the CO's personal staff officer. That's only in battle, though. Most of the time they're just, I don't know. Administrators. They take the daily workload off the CO."

"A secretary?"

"In a way. A secretary who can help plan and carry out a battle, though, and they don't take dictation. Does any of this help?" he asked impatiently. "Raufoss? A.G.? We're guessing. Even if we _knew_ what it meant, how would that help? _What_ would it help?"

Sherlock shook his head. "I don't know." God, he'd been saying that so often lately. "Without knowing what it means, I can't say whether the knowledge will be valuable if we have it." He started to sit up straighter but grunted in pain and at last gave in to his frustration. "How much longer-"

"I don't know," John replied crossly, "but if you'd stop poncing about the continent like you have a death wish you might actually give yourself a chance to heal."

Sherlock mastered his impatience. What was important now was that they were on the right track. He knew what it felt like, that sensation that the hunt was on. "We're getting close, John. _Think_ : In 2007 Elizabeth Camden broke a contract with the Russian mafia and murdered six innocent people and three gangsters. The Russians were closing in on her. She needed a new identity that would stand up to the scrutiny of some of the most dangerous people in the world and she needed it fast. And she got it. How? Where? Who would a desperate assassin on the run turn to?"

John didn't have the first clue.

"How would she pay for it?" Sherlock asked. "John, she deceived _Mycroft_ with that ID. The number of people who could provide her with something of that quality is incredibly limited. It would be expensive."

"How expensive?" John asked.

"Six figures, at least," Sherlock said. "Listen: Melas turned up nothing in her accounts that would give her the means to pay cash for something like that. Her CIA pension in late 2006 was worth less than fifty thousand pounds. She's got a little over sixteen thousand combined in her savings and current accounts. She was paid every two weeks by the CIA, but since February of 2007-when Elizabeth Camden died-the agency stopped all payments. Prior to that there were some irregular deposits for her black bag work for the CIA and MI6 made by shell companies of those agencies. A few other irregular wire transfer deposits that trace to shells in places like Oman, Bolivia, and Guyana. Those represent her free-lancing. None of it adds up to more than a hundred thousand pounds or so. Not enough to comfortably spend it all on a new identity and live on a nurse's salary."

"Maybe she figured it was worth it not to be killed by Russians."

"Or maybe she didn't pay cash for it, or at least not for the full price."

"What, she charged it on Visa?"

"What if she bartered her skill for it?"

"You mean went to work for whoever got her the identity? As what? Somebody's personal assassin? Who the hell hires snipers to follow them-"

Sherlock looked up, and their eyes meet.

"Oh, shit," John said.

"Moriarty."

John got up, paced the kitchen in agitation. "No. No way. Sherlock, I can't...Those people he strapped to blocks of C4. That business at the pool. You and Moriarty on the roof. The sniper watching all that go down. _That_ was Mary. That's what you think?" A gust of rage seized him and he snatched up the drive and threw it hard into the next room, then sank back into the chair and dropped his head in his hands.

"John." His distress was killing Sherlock, but there was nothing he could say or do to fix it.

"That's what you think," John said again. "Jesus, it's what _I_ think." He gave a bitter laugh and sat back. "Well, she was right about that thing. Don't read what's on it in front of her, because I won't love her when I'm through. I thought she meant the data inside it, but she meant literally what's _on_ it."

"She was already in London for her MI6 work," Sherlock said. "Why not go to the world's foremost consulting criminal? Who else could arrange a deception so iron-clad that it could fool my brother?"

"Wait," John said. "Hang on. You said Mycroft's people intercepted the sniper targeting me at Barts. That wasn't Mary."

"No. Unfortunately neither Mycroft nor I suspected the existence of a second watcher. Mary Morstan. Moriarty's personal 'staff officer.' Adjutant General RA. The dragon guarding the throne."

"Great," John said bitterly. "Poetry."

"If she had eyes and ears on him at Barts and at the pool it would explain everything she's done since his death."

John stopped and stared at him as though he was mad. "Are you...? Explain _everything?_ How the hell does it explain _anything_?"

"John. Mary's a psychopath. Psychopaths don't respect anyone they can manipulate. Moriarty was even more so, so he would have been one of the very few people immune to her and therefore someone she could respect, maybe even esteem. If she had eyes and ears on him at the pool and at Barts she'd have heard everything he said to me. If she was very highly placed in his organization-and the fact that he relied on her sniper skills suggests that she was-then she'd have been privy to his plans in any case."

"Yeah? And?"

"If she wanted revenge for Moriarty's death, if she knew that I survived the rooftop, and if she wanted to carry out his plans for me, she would act exactly as she has for the last two years. She'd insert herself into your life, encourage you to forgive me when I returned, encourage our friendship as much as possible. Why? Because-"

He stopped in mid-gallop, struck suddenly by an idea. _So sorry your family couldn't be here to see this._ Last week he'd still taken that message at face value, as a reference to Mary's actual family, but what if the truth was more obscure than that? What if the 'family' about whom Magnussen was needling her wasn't literal but _symbolic?_ What if it was James Moriarty? Magnussen placed his darts with exquisite precision to maximize his victims' psychological anguish. If he knew that Mary's connection to Moriarty was deeper than that between employee and employer, there could be no better way to distress her and no better time to do it than her marriage to the best friend of the man she held responsible for Moriarty's death-where it would be read by the very man she blamed.

A. . Raufoss. An armour-piercing sniper round. Oh, the symbolism was too perfect: Mary insinuated herself into her target's life-pierced his armour, as it were-and then killed him. No, she'd rarely have to go to the extreme of marrying or even dating her targets but this was a special case, and if Moriarty meant something as profound to her as family, then going to these lengths to avenge him made perfect sense.

"Sherlock," John prompted. "What were you going to say? 'Because' what?"

But there was no response and it was obvious to John that he wasn't going to get one. Suddenly something occurred to him: He sat up and drew his phone from his pocket. Woke the screen and went to the keypad function as though he was going to make a call, but instead studied the numbers. "A, G, R, A," he murmured to himself. "Two, four, seven, two. That's how you knew her phone's unlock code." He pocketed the phone and slumped back in the chair, despairing. "How does this change anything? I mean, besides making it worse?"

Sherlock was only half-way back, still distracted. "Knowing is never worse, John," he said vaguely. "Reality is the same whether we perceive it or not. Nothing has changed except what we know."

"Great. Then tell me what you were going to say. 'Because' what? Why the hell is she doing all this?"

 _I will burn the heart out of you_. If he'd ignored his brother, if he'd made contact with John after the 'suicide,' if he'd not been so damned set on showing off, he would not have delivered John up to Mary. _Fallout_. What they were experiencing now was the fallout not just of his pursuit and destruction of Moriarty-which he could live with-but of his failure to include John in his plans, and he failed to do that because he was crap at friendship. _One word, Sherlock. That's all I would have needed._

" _Sherlock_."

Sherlock looked up, met his eyes, and John was shocked by the completely unexpected pain he saw there.

Sherlock said, "Because I made a mistake."


	6. Chapter 6

**Wednesday, 15 October 2014**

Using Lestrade's name and a sketchy display of the DI's badge, Sherlock checked in to HMP Woodhill to see Simon Naylor, prisoner number 0720, currently serving 20 to 25 years for kidnapping and terroristic threats, having been convicted on Sherlock's testimony for his role in the C4 incidents of late 2010. 'The Great Game,' as John titled his blog post about it.

Sherlock was led into a tiny interrogation room containing a single table and four metal chairs. An industrial dual-bulb florescent fixture in a wire cage buzzed overhead.

Eight minutes after he sat down the door opened to admit Naylor, a short, muscular, coarse-featured man of twenty-eight who shuffled in wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, leg restraints, and a thick leather strap around his waist to which his hands were cuffed. A separate chain ran vertically from the waist strap to the center of the chain securing his ankles. The guard gave him a shove into the room, closed the door behind him, and posted himself in the hall.

Naylor stopped with a scowl when he recognized Sherlock. "The bloody 'ell are you doin' 'ere?" he demanded. "You ain't on my list."

"But you're on mine, Simon," Sherlock said.

"Anyways, I thought you copped it," Naylor said, sitting down across from him.

"I got better."

"Sorry to 'ear it. Well, whatever yer 'ere for you can forget it. I ain't tellin' you shit."

"You'd be surprised how much you're going to tell me," Sherlock replied. He pulled two photographs from his pocket, both of Mary: One an enlarged copy of her CIA ID, minus the credentials, and one from the wedding. Placed them on the table. "Tell me who that woman is."

Naylor stared insolently straight at him and obviously had no intention of looking at the pictures. He'd have crossed his arms if he could get his hands above his waist. Under the table Sherlock hooked his foot around the vertical chain and pulled it sharply toward himself, bringing Naylor's head down onto the table with a meaty thud.

"Jesus Christ, you crazy prick!" Naylor cried. He tried to pull back but Sherlock kept his foot hard on the chain.

"Reconsider your position," Sherlock said.

"All right!" Naylor growled. "I'll look at 'em."

Sherlock unhooked his foot. "Tell me who that woman is," he said again.

Naylor sat up, made a big deal about turning his head left and right, stretching, then glared stonily at the photographs.

"Today," Sherlock snapped.

Naylor shrugged. "Not a clue."

Sherlock was peering closely at his face, but he detected none of the involuntary 'tells' that would indicate Naylor was lying and that he recognized Mary. He took the photos back and pocketed them.

"That it?" Naylor asked petulantly.

"No. Tell me about Agra."

"At the risk of puttin' another dent in the table," Naylor said sarcastically, "the last guy who opened his pie hole about Agra ended up danglin' off a crane."

"The Creek Road Euromix plant. June 2009," Sherlock said at once. "That was Agra."

"Yeah," Naylor said. "You think 'e won't figure a way to make bad things 'appen in 'ere?"

"You're doing twenty years with the possibility of getting out on licence in ten," Sherlock said. "Answer my questions and I can make it eight. Fail to answer and I will make it life."

Naylor snorted. "I'd rather sit 'ere for ten than end up in the river in eight for talkin' to you, and anyways you got nothin' to keep me 'ere for life."

Sherlock reached into his pocket and withdrew a receipt for a left luggage locker at Birmingham New Street station. Dropped it carelessly on the table. "You sure?"

Naylor's scowl deepened. "You piece of-"

"Boring," Sherlock interrupted. "Really, Simon, you can't hurt my feelings by name-calling. I, however, can hurt your face. Or buy you two years of freedom. Which is it to be?"

Naylor continued to hesitate until Sherlock hooked his foot around the chain again. "Okay," Naylor snapped. "Eight years. Swear?"

"Scout's honour," Sherlock said.

"Well, it ain't gonna do you no good," Naylor said, "because nobody ever met Agra 'cept Jim hisself.. 'E was Moriarty's right-hand man, but 'e kept 'imself to 'imself, if you know what I mean."

"'Right-hand man'?"

"Yeah," Naylor said. "What of it?"

"How do you know Agra isn't a woman?"

"Pfft," Naylor scoffed. "'ow many birds you think a guy like Moriarty attracted, anyways? You're supposed to be such a great detective an' all an' you never noticed that 'e weren't really the singles bar type?"

"That doesn't mean he wouldn't employ a woman," Sherlock said.

"As a sniper?" Naylor replied. "As his personal assassin? That'd be a first."

"Sexist. Who else besides Moriarty would have had contact with Agra?"

"No one. That was a professional organization you took apart, Mr. Super Detective. No one had contact with anyone directly. Texts and phone calls only. It worked, too, dinnit? You blew right on by Agra while you was cleanin' up all us little fishes. 'E makin' a little trouble for you now, is 'e?"

Sherlock considered. Naylor was a dead end for any other information, but he'd confirmed that Mary worked very closely with Moriarty and furthermore that, as Sherlock already knew, the organization wasn't really structured like an organization as such. It was far more loosely arranged, with everyone on a need-to-know basis and the 'employees' kept in ignorance of each other's roles: Knowing only their own particular jobs they were incapable of betraying significant portions of the criminal empire, intentionally or not-which was in part why it had taken Sherlock far longer to destroy it than he'd expected.

Sherlock slipped the left luggage receipt back into his pocket and stood. Naylor looked anxious for the first time.

"Oi, you ain't gonna back out on the two years, are you?"

"What, and damage my credibility with the criminal classes?" Sherlock said. "Tell your barrister to call me."


	7. Chapter 7

**Wednesday, 3 December 2014**

As a trauma surgeon at the head of a team of highly-trained professionals, John Watson learned to lead. As a soldier he learned to follow. In both cases he'd been used to giving or receiving clear, explicit information and direction and to knowing unambiguously the right course to take. Regardless of the role he assumed at any given moment, the army had been a way of life for him and he loved it, flaws and all, because it gave him a measure of certainty. He'd have remained there for the rest of his life if an Uzi round hadn't changed his plans.

Neither information nor direction were as forthcoming from Sherlock as John considered optimal. The detective's long-standing habit of self-imposed isolation explained part of it; his flair for drama explained still more; and the delight he took in amazing John with the solutions to cases dispensed with the rest. To those tendencies was now added his refusal to give John more information than was safe for him to know.

John's trust in his friend was entire: He was confident that Sherlock had an end game in mind and that its success depended in part on withholding or even misrepresenting some information, but more important he was confident that underlying and justifying his methods was the friendship Sherlock felt for him. It wasn't always obvious, but even when his solicitude took the form of jumping off a building and disappearing for two years, Sherlock was motivated by what he judged to be John's best interests.

It was a measure of that trust that John tolerated the uncertain situation in which he now found himself as well as he did, because success in his former life had depended on his _knowing_ : knowing how to treat and repair a given injury or how to carry out an order-in short, it depended on seeing a clear path for action. This chronic state of _not_ knowing left him tense, unhappy, and emotionally flayed. Added to the uncertainty was the problem of his indeterminate status: neither Sherlock's flatmate nor Mary's husband, because while Sherlock's recovery was advanced to the point that not even by the most tenuous reasoning could John justify remaining in Baker Street to look after him, neither was there any question of going back to the house he'd shared with Mary, because he certainly would not be returning to her.

Whether he could forgive what she did in the past was irrelevant; the fact was that he couldn't forgive what she'd done in the present. He'd meant to spend his life with her, just as he'd meant to spend his life as a soldier, but other people kept taking those choices out of his hands. The man on whose decisions had depended the lives of his fellow soldiers passionately resented that loss of control, but whereas he could tolerate it from Sherlock because he was confident of his friend's motive, he now knew that whatever Mary's reasons were for deceiving him they were not based on love. Despite what he'd intended she was never the woman he would have raised a family with, never the woman he would have grown old with.

On a wintry, wet, and raw morning three days into December, Sherlock sat reading the newspapers at the living room table as wisps of steam rose curling from his tea cup. He glanced at John as he came downstairs, observed the tension in his shoulders and the set of his jaw-neither of which was new but both of which were more pronounced than ever today-and while he judged these signs unpropitious considering what he was going to introduce as a topic, Christmas was just three weeks away and John would need every bit of that time to adjust to what Sherlock was going to ask of him.

John found a bagel in the bread bin, toasted it, spread it with jam, and stood eating it over the sink. When he finished he brushed the crumbs from his hands, poured a cup of coffee, and brought it to his chair, where he considered Sherlock: His appearance, while perfectly usual, suggested none of the lively tension typical of the detective when he was making progress on a satisfying case. Therefore he had some other reason for being up this early in the day. "What's going on?" John asked with resignation.

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. "Why do you say it like that?"

"You don't have a case. You weren't up all night, so the fact that you're up now means you're out of bed a good two hours earlier than usual. Therefore something's up, and the track record of the last two months strongly implies that it's going to suck. So what is it?"

Sherlock couldn't entirely suppress a little smile at this. "I'm going to trade the information about Mary for something Magnussen would much rather have."

John nodded. "Great. Shall I phone for the ambulance now or...?"

"It won't come to that."

"Uh-huh. And what are you trading?"

"It's better that-"

"That I not know. Fine. When are you going to make this offer he can't refuse?"

"At Christmas dinner."

John blinked. "You're having Christmas dinner with Magnussen."

"Worse," Sherlock said. "With my parents."

"Seriously?"

"Desperate times, desperate measures," Sherlock said, then explained. "I need Mycroft's physical presence to make this work. The only way to get that is to get him out of London, and the only way to get him out of London is to agree to it for him. My mother's annual campaign to make us both go home for the holiday is going to kick into high in about-" glanced at his watch "-four days. If I call her and accept on Mycroft's behalf, nothing short of a nuclear blast centered on Parliament will allow him to back out, and I very much doubt that she'd let him off the hook even with that lame excuse. You and I will drive from there to Magnussen's and I will present him with-with the trade goods."

"Wait. 'You and I'? You want me to come to Christmas dinner with your parents?"

"No, I want you to come to my parents' house on the _pretext_ of dinner and then go with me to Magnussen's. Aren't you listening?" He looked curiously at John. "Why do you look so shocked? You've been dying to gossip with them about me ever since you learned of their existence. Gossip which, I'm sorry say, you will not have time for, as Mary's coming too."

John's face closed off like a door slammed shut. "Forget it."

"John."

" _No_." Then, a second later, "What the hell for?"

"Magnussen's knowledge of her enemies is a risk to Mary, correct?"

"Yeah," John said impatiently. "We've been over this."

"It's a risk," Sherlock said, "but not an immediate one, because he's keeping that leverage in reserve."

"For what?"

"You know that Magnussen's big on what he calls pressure points. If he controls Mary he ultimately controls Mycroft." Sherlock waited as John connected the dots.

"She's not my pressure point," John concluded after a minute, his voice low. "Not any more."

"Magnussen thinks she is," Sherlock insisted. "If that changes he'll wonder why. If he wonders why it means he's spending too much time thinking about what I'm doing. I don't want him to spend _any_ time thinking about that."

"Because...?"

"Because it would increase the risk to you. John: Mary's enemies won't discriminate between her and the people standing around her. If Magnussen pulls the trigger they'll kill you as well, just to send a message. But he won't pull the trigger, or at least not yet. For now he's got too much leverage to actually have to use it. Right now he thinks he controls Mycroft through Mary, you, and me. If he realizes that Mary's not part of that chain any more, then the danger to you becomes primary, not secondary. You'll stop being potential collateral damage and become the actual intended target, always in the crosshairs, never knowing when your time is up."

John thought about it, but he couldn't find a hole in that logic so he made a hopeless gesture designed to convey the sentiment, 'If you say so.' "Why do you want her to come to dinner?"

"I want you to reconcile with her."

John received that almost as well as Sherlock expected him to. Fortunately both of them were already sitting down and John had no way to punch him for even suggesting it. He clapped the mug down on the end table, slopping coffee everywhere.

"Are you-are you out of your mind? No _bloody_ way. Forget it. Sherlock, you just got through saying that being around her makes me collateral damage!"

"It puts you _at risk_ of being collateral damage," Sherlock corrected. "If it were certain I wouldn't propose it, and of the risks to which you're currently exposed I calculate that it's by far the smallest. Although frankly that's not saying much."

"Oh, good to know," John cried sarcastically. "Because for a minute there it sounded like you were suggesting a suicide mission. An extended, indefinite suicide mission. Because I'm telling you, Sherlock, I can't do this for much longer, this-" vague hand wave "-where we're not husband and wife, not divorced, not anything."

Sherlock was shaking his head. "John, listen. It won't be indefinite. She's got time constraints. For a start, she's pregnant. Given what I suspect her of intending she won't be willing or able to let that advance too much farther before she acts. Also given what I believe she has planned, keeping you close to her is the easiest way to anticipate what she does. It will keep her options relatively delimited and far more predictable."

"Options for what?"

"I can't-"

"Tell me yet. Dammit-" He stopped. They'd been over this. He knew why Sherlock wasn't willing to fill him in yet, and he was getting all emotional over something that wasn't going to change. He sighed and made a little 'go on' motion with his hand. "Sorry."

"Time constraints," Sherlock said again. "Reconciling with Mary is risky, yes, but it's manageable risk because from her perspective it will put her back in control and that's always going to be safer than the alternative. Right now she's still waiting to see how we're going to resolve all this, but if she believes that you're beyond her control for good the danger to you will increase exponentially and become far harder to predict."

John already knew that Sherlock wasn't going to tell him what this risk was, but he couldn't help himself. "You do realize that I can't make an informed decision about this unless you, you know: inform me."

"I know. I'm sorry," Sherlock said, and he meant it.

John sulked at the fireplace. After nearly six minutes of sitting there brooding in silence he said, "I can't, Sherlock. I'm sorry. You have to find another way. I don't know what the hell I'm going to do, but I can't make a marriage work with a serial killer. I can't reconcile with her."

"You don't have to," Sherlock said. "You just have to make her think you are."

"How the hell am I supposed to do that?" John cried. "You said yourself I'm no good at lying. Hell, she sees through _you_ half the time. Anyway, we haven't even spoken since that night. How's it going to look if I just suddenly decide out of the blue that everything's all better?"

"Don't worry. I've prepared the ground quite carefully."

"The hell does that mean?"

"She's my client, John. I've kept in regular contact with her for the last two months, just as I would with any client who needed to be kept informed of the progress of her case. Everything she's prepared to believe, I've told her: that you miss her; that this has been a very painful experience for you; and that you'll do just about anything to make things right. All true in one sense for you but another for her. Given all that it will seem perfectly reasonable when I tell her that it would mean a lot to you if she came out to the house with us. And yes," he added, anticipating John's next objection, "I will tell her not to expect too much from you. That should stop her wondering why you're so...you know."

"What?"

"Tense?" Sherlock offered after some consideration.

"Why the hell would she even believe me?"

"She already believes it. That's half the battle. She believes you're a romantic, and so you are."

"Not feeling very romantic right this second," John replied.

"No. That would be weird. But she's ready to believe that you want this all to be over with."

"I do."

"Yes, exactly: It's the truth, which works in our favor. And she underestimates you, which is also in our favor. She believed you were too conflict-averse to read the thumb drive. That you're too conflict-averse to dig into her past. She has no idea that you know about Irkutsk or anything else. From her perspective-"

"From her perspective I'm the chump who'll go crawling back because I'm too afraid to face reality."

"Exactly!" Sherlock cried, delighted that he grasped it. And at John's chagrined expression, "Well, you're not, obviously."

"Yeah, thanks."

"Don't you see? It's exactly what she needs to think, and because it's also what she _wants_ to think it will make your job easier. Christmas is the perfect setting for a reconciliation, exactly the sort of milestone date a romantic would use to make a grand gesture like that."

" _You're_ the one who's always reminding me what a rubbish liar I am, and you think I can pull that off. An acting job like that."

"Are you certain you'd be acting?"

John couldn't believe he just heard that. "Oh, I _really_ need for that to be some kind of devil's advocate crap, because if you think I could actually go back to her, knowing what I know now, then I just ran fresh out of friends. Sherlock, two months ago I found out that she's a serial killer. I found out that everything she ever told me about herself was a lie. I found out that my wife, the woman I fell in love with and married, never actually existed."

"Yes, and you processed that information very quickly. Skipped denial and went straight to anger."

"I 'processed' it _quickly?_ " John cried, a dangerous light springing up in his dark eyes. "How long should it take? What the hell do you want me to say? That I'm still 'meh' on whether it's a good idea to raise babies with someone who executes people for fun and profit? Should my next step be acceptance? Don't you think that would make _me_ a psychopath?"

"Yes," Sherlock said in the low, calm voice he so often used when John was agitated. "And you aren't." He paused, and when he knew that John was ready to listen he continued.

"We've done a lot of dangerous things, you and I. Separately. Together. None of them more dangerous than what we're facing now. Mary successfully manipulated both of us for over a year. She's a woman with lethal skills and an agenda that puts you in real danger. Unfortunately every alternative I can project puts you in more, but if you really think you can't do this then there _are_ alternatives."

John glared at him. "I'm getting sick of hearing about the risk to me. What about the risk to you?"

Sherlock shrugged. "That doesn't matter."

"It matters to _me_."

"I know. Which is why you need to be sure about this. Absolutely sure."

He never answered John's question- _What about the risk to you?_ -and John knew what that meant: It was as bad or worse than his own.

After two months Sherlock was finally offering him what he'd been looking for: A direction. The certainty of one of two outcomes, just as John always had in medicine and in the army: He would either save the patient or he would not; he would either complete the mission successfully or he would not. Now they would either win as Sherlock defined it or they would lose. Either way, the time of inaction was over, and that was what he'd been waiting for.

"John," Sherlock said again. "You have to be sure."

He was peering straight into John's face with his intense, pale eyes, assessing, evaluating, and John faced him squarely, letting him see what he was looking for. _She killed you_ , he thought. "I'm sure," he said.

"Do you still have it?" Sherlock asked.

John blinked at the non sequitur. "Sorry?"

"Your wedding ring."

Sherlock glanced down at his hand, and John followed his gaze. "I took it off," he said.

"On the fourteenth of October between three and half four in the morning. I can't pin it down more accurately than that, I'm afraid, as I was asleep, but let's say a quarter past four, give or take ten minutes either side."

John glared at him. "Four twenty-eight. I suppose you knew I was going to do that, too." He wasn't pleased about it. "How?"

"The night of Leinster Gardens," Sherlock said. "You failed to do a very particular thing."

"What's that?"

"You never asked her to give you a reason to stay."

John swallowed, shook his head. "I can't live like that, Sherlock. All that lying: That's not love. Of course, at the time I still thought there'd been something real between us. How long have you known there wasn't?"

"Not until she shot me."

"That was your first clue?"

"Actually, no. But it was the first one I wasn't too thick to notice."


	8. Chapter 8

**Thursday, 4 December 2014**

They did not pursue the topic again that day. It was time they could ill-afford to waste, but there was nothing for it, Sherlock knew: John had to be clear in his own mind about both the necessity and the viability of the plan and he had to resolve his doubts and anger to his own satisfaction. To push him before he arrived there in his own time would be counterproductive at best.

The next morning, however, when John reached coffee, Sherlock stepped over to him with a sheet of yellow notepaper in his hand.

"What's that?" John asked, looking up.

"Your script."

"My what?"

Sherlock handed it to him and John unfolded the page, on which were a few lines written in Sherlock's graceful, decided hand.

"I've thought long and hard about what I want to say to you. These are prepared words,

Mary. I've chosen these words with care. The problems of your past are your business.

The problems of your future are my privilege. That's all I have to say. That's all I need

to know."

Sherlock lowered himself into the chair across from him and watched his face cloud with anger as he read. It took just a few seconds before John looked up, and Sherlock wasn't surprised to read pain in his eyes, as well. "John," he said quickly. "Before you say anything at all, listen."

John clapped his mouth shut and nodded tersely.

"Mary believed everything I told her the night of the domestic and everything I've told her since because it's been true-in one sense. For this to work you have to do the same. You will not lie to her. What you say to her has to be true _to you_. Do you understand?"

John glanced down and read the lines again. Sherlock never did anything without a reason. Even the brevity of the little speech was designed for the specific purpose of minimizing John's risk of exposure as a liar. And just as Sherlock said, the words were true: He _had_ thought long and hard about what he wanted to say to her. These _were_ prepared words chosen with care. Like one of those brain-teaser drawings that could be seen two ways depending on what the viewer focused on, this little paragraph contained a deeper truth than the one Mary would hear. _The problems of your future are my privilege_. John had no idea what Sherlock had planned for Mary nor what it implied for himself, but working beside Sherlock Holmes had always been his privilege, and whatever Sherlock was doing it was going to be a problem for Mary.

"Tell me something," he said.

"Yes?"

"'The problems of her past.' Wouldn't all this go away if...Shouldn't we just go to MI6 or the CIA?"

"Is that what you want?" Sherlock asked.

John just glared at him. "Yeah, that's funny," he said.

Sherlock looked at him warily: pretty sure that was sarcasm. "Sorry?"

"'Is that what I want?' I didn't _want_ to leave the army. I didn't _want_ my best friend to kill himself in front of me. I didn't _want_ my wife to be a serial killer. There's a lot of things I haven't _wanted_ , Sherlock, and people keep deciding them for me anyway. Suddenly _this_ is in my hands? Okay. Then yeah: I think we should contact the CIA and get out of it."

Sherlock shook his head. "You and I know that she killed those people in Russia. The Russian mafia knows it. Sutko and his contacts know it. But who's going to testify to it? Would you?"

"I..." John thought it through. Yes, he knew it. But he couldn't prove it. His testimony in court or even his word to the CIA would be worthless. He looked up. "I know she shot you."

"But you can't prove it, and I won't testify to it."

"Why the bloody hell-"

"Because it would be a death sentence for her," Sherlock said impatiently, "and for you. I told you: If Magnussen believes she's no longer a link in the chain of influence that leads to Mycroft, you'll become his primary focus. I won't let that happen. And think about it: Once Mary's on the radar of any government agency they're going to start asking questions about her and about her background. Fingerprinting. Matching those fingerprints. Her real identity will be confirmed and when that happens it's just a matter of time before it gets out to her enemies. She won't be safe from them even in prison. You might think she belongs there, but can you honestly say that you want to see her dead?"

John's throat was so tight he could scarcely get the words out. "Of course not."

"I'm sorry that it has to be this way, John. I am. But all the objections you're raising have already occurred to me. If there were another way to improve our odds I would take it. There's not."

John gave up. It was idiotic for him to think that he was going to see a better way out of this morass if Sherlock hadn't seen it already. He looked up, met Sherlock's eyes, and answered the question he'd originally asked. "I understand."

ooooo

As his first task John was required to get the words off by heart. That, it turned out, was the easy part, because next came reciting them aloud to Sherlock. Face to face. Repeatedly. Every hour. Day after day, until even Sherlock could find nothing but sincerity in John's voice and expression. At first it was embarrassing to stand there as the detective peered intently into his face, searching for and pouncing on the most subtle, involuntary reveals-pupil dilation, the pulse in his throat, how often he blinked per unit of time-reveals that required John not just to say the words but to believe them entirely.

Embarrassing, at first, then irritating as time passed but Sherlock's demands that he rehearse carried on unabated. Finally came gratitude: In part because it was over and he'd been able to stand facing Mary for the first time in three months and pass the test; and in part because she reacted exactly as Sherlock predicted that she would: tearfully, with vast relief. Not, John understood by then, because she thought he forgave her, but because he'd just put himself back under her control. All those months she'd invested in him for an end he couldn't conceive of hadn't been wasted. John was grateful that Sherlock armoured him against her reaction, because as cold and empty as he felt toward her, those tears would have shaken him to the core.

Just two hours later he wished to God that Sherlock had armoured him against far more than a few tears.


	9. Chapter 9

**Thursday, 25 December 2014**

 _Merry Christmas_ , Sherlock snarled, snapping up the pistol he'd just snatched from John's coat pocket. As he brought it to bear on Magnussen's forehead John reacted as automatically and violently as if it was aimed at his own, slapping Sherlock's arm aside and twisting the gun from his grasp even as he swept Sherlock's feet and dumped him flat on his back. So focused was Sherlock on Magnussen and so fast did John move that Sherlock couldn't fully break his fall: His head bounced on the cold flagstones.

John was still in motion, stripping the slide off the gun and tossing it away from himself in two pieces as he stepped between Sherlock and the soldiers and raised his arms in surrender. He could hear again-the helicopter and Mycroft's horrified shouts at the soldiers to hold their fire-and he realized it was his own voice yelling at Sherlock to get his hands up, too. Then someone hit him hard between the shoulder blades and he was forced to his knees, had his hands zip-tied behind his back, and he was hauled to his feet and sat on the low patio wall. Sherlock got the same treatment. His feet scraped the flagstones as the soldiers half-carried, half-dragged him to the wall, where they installed him next to John.

John had seen Sherlock in many moods, but he'd always been master of himself. Not now. There was no reason left in him. Just rage and fear that radiated from him like heat off asphalt in August. His teeth were bared like an animal's and as his head cleared he focused all his attention on Magnussen, who was being hustled back into the house.

The helicopter landed and shut down, discharging Mycroft, who strode past them without a glance, following Magnussen inside.

Unfortunately the captives had been sat facing the glass-walled house where Mycroft had gone into conference with Magnussen, and while Sherlock was eminently capable of retaining a goal even when it was out of his immediate sight, the fact that he could still see the object of his hatred did nothing to mitigate his fury. He was shaking with anger and the effects of adrenaline, and to his expression of impotent rage was added contempt for his brother, who was obviously cravenly negotiating with the man who held him pinned under his thumb.

Although initially shaken by having a gun fired off next to his face, Magnussen had recovered his cold reptilian mien and it was impossible for John to determine the tenor of the conversation. The two men gave nothing away through gestures and body language-until Mycroft poured a tumbler of scotch. Even from where he sat John could see Mycroft's hand shake as he offered it to the blackmailer. Was it deliberate? John doubted it: Sherlock just scared the living hell out of his brother.

After about five minutes of discussion Magnussen returned the laptop and extended his hand to Mycroft, who glanced down at it, then accepted the handshake. Sherlock looked away for the first time.

Mycroft emerged from the house and approached the commando captain, not sparing a glance for his brother and John. "Get them out of here," he said, and walked off to the waiting helicopter.

"Mr. Holmes?" the captain said, approaching. "Dr. Watson? Come with me, please?"

He led them, still zip-tied and flanked by two other soldiers, around the outside of the house to the driveway, where they were loaded into a glistening black Humvee.

After about fifteen kilometres it became evident to John that the soldier driving the car was working up his nerve to say something, and finally the man broke the tense silence. "Dr. Watson."

"Yes?"

"You were at Delaram in 2009."

John was in no sort of mood to talk, but he was civil to a fellow soldier. "Yeah, sorry, but I'd rather not talk about it, if you don't mind."

"No, sir," the captain said. "I understand. Mate of mine was there. In the fifth vehicle back. Told me what happened. I just wanted to say thank you."

The rest of the ride was passed in heavy silence. John and Sherlock were both seething and Sherlock, for one, had developed the most appalling headache.

After some ninety minutes they reached the outskirts of London, and John was very surprised when their route took them not to MI5 or even the Met but to Baker Street. Once the car stopped at the kerb the soldier in the passenger seat clipped the ties binding their wrists and said, "Sorry for that, sir. Orders. Mr. Holmes wanted to make sure that you arrived intact."

Sherlock hadn't spoken a word since 'Merry Christmas.' He went straight into the house, straight upstairs. John started after him, but he hadn't taken two strides toward the front door before his phone rang.

He assumed the caller was Mary, still out at the Holmestead and wondering where he was, but no: Mycroft. Dammit. Of course Mycroft would be furious with both of them. Well, John was in no mood to take any friction from him, either. He was looking for people to blame and Mycroft would do nicely, with his asinine defence of Magnussen, so he took the call, pacing the pavement in front of the flat as he spoke.

Mycroft's voice was as smooth and urbane as ever, but he was angrier than John had ever heard him. "I have, not unreasonably, come to rely upon you to mitigate some of Sherlock's wilder excesses, Dr. Watson," he began. "If, as now seems to be the case, the only thing I can rely on you to do is to act as an accessory before and after the fact, then perhaps your utility has run its course. I've a mind to put an end to this little Boy's Own adventure the two of you have been engaged in."

"I'd like to see you try," John said grimly.

"No, you most assuredly would _not_ like that," Mycroft snapped, "and neither would Sherlock. MI6 has already proposed that he take an assignment abroad; I could insist on it. In fact, if word of this _episode_ tonight gets out, I might have to."

"You insist on him doing a lot of things, Mycroft, and they don't get done without his cooperation. And mine."

"Do you know why I'm confident that Sherlock will remain upstairs during this call, and why I'm confident that he didn't go straight out the back of the building to return to Appledore and finish the job?"

"What's your point? You have people watching. And?"

"Watching. Not intervening. But they could, and they would."

"And you think, what, that you could just bundle him onto an airplane against his will? Force him into working for MI6? Have you _met_ him? How well do you even know your own brother?"

"Better than you, it seems."

"I didn't _know_ he was going to try to kill Magnussen," John snapped.

"QED," Mycroft said.

"You son of a bitch. That's really rich, coming from you. You watched me spend two _bloody_ years mourning his death and you were in on the whole thing from the start. For all I knew the two of you had tonight planned, too."

"Sherlock has a high opinion of your intelligence, Doctor. I'm afraid I don't perceive it myself. Why, knowing what you do about my efforts to keep him away from Magnussen, would you draw that conclusion?"

"Just thinking like a genius," John said. "Anyone with a positive IQ and Magnussen's boot on his neck ought to jump at the chance to help Sherlock defeat the guy. Of course, I didn't factor in that you like playing master of the universe too much to do anything that practical. Whatever was I thinking?"

"Excellent question. What _were_ you thinking? Sherlock obviously asked you to bring your gun to Christmas dinner with his parents, for a start. Or is a sidearm your standard holiday attire?"

"He always asks me to bring the gun!" John shouted, then dropped his voice when he realized that passersby were staring. "That doesn't prove anything. Look, he didn't go there tonight intending to kill Magnussen. I know that much."

"Do you."

"Yeah. I do. Something happened. As soon as Magnussen said there were no vaults-"

"Vaults?" Mycroft scoffed.

"Yeah, vaults. The Appledore vaults. His little...sort of...repository...where he keeps all the evidence he's collected on the people he blackmails. He said they don't exist except in his head. Sherlock expected to be able to trade the computer for the information Magnussen has on Mary and then destroy it. Once Magnussen said there was no physical evidence Sherlock, I don't know. Vapor-locked."

"Which raises another point, does it not?" Mycroft said. "If you're looking for the proximate cause of my brother's existential crisis, you might consult a mirror."

"Me. You're going to make this _my_ fault?"

"Sherlock will do anything for you, and by extension for the woman you married. Even if it kills him. Which, if Magnussen breaks his promise of silence-and we all know blackmailers are inherently trustworthy-tonight's adventure is very likely to do. So congratulations, Dr. Watson: By enabling my brother's excursion you have very effectively increased the power that Magnussen holds over us all."

"Go to hell," John snapped, and rang off. He stamped upstairs, threw his coat over one of the kitchen chairs, and stood there for a moment, talking himself out of a shot of scotch: All he needed was to start drinking and end up like his sister.

"Don't," Sherlock said from the living room, where he was pacing agitatedly.

John gritted his teeth. "Don't what."

"Don't go down your sister's path over this."

"God damn you," John growled in a low voice, and Sherlock stopped in his tracks with a frown. John stepped up to him, pointed to Sherlock's chair. "Sit down," he ordered.

"Why?"

"Because I said so."

That line of reasoning had never worked on Sherlock in his life and now his head went up fractionally-in assessment, because he was wondering just exactly how angry John was, but in his current mood John interpreted it as defiance. "Sherlock," he ground out, "so help me God, if you don't sit down I will put you down."

Sherlock knew he could do it: John's assault on the patio surprised him, but he didn't doubt that even if he'd seen it coming he still would have finished that confrontation on his arse. Besides, while he was fairly confident that John wouldn't actually injure him he'd also never seen him display this sort of hot rage before. He sat down.

John continued to stand glaring at him, breathing hard. "You're a genius, yeah? And I'm just an average idiot." His voice sounded unnatural, distorted by his anger. "So I'm gonna need your help to understand what the hell's going on here. You wanted to get Magnussen off Mary's back. Remove the threat to her, remove the threat to me. That was the plan, right? _Right?_ "

"Yesss." Pissed off.

"Well, then why don't you explain to your pet moron here just exactly how you planned to do that from a prison cell. Because if those soldiers hadn't shot you, that's where you would have ended up. And probably me. And still might, if Magnussen decides to lift a finger."

Sherlock sneered. "No, my dear brother saw to that. Probably offered him an ambassa-"

"God _dammit_ , Sherlock!" John yelled, and Sherlock blinked in surprise. "How could you think that was okay? Three months ago you watched me find out that my wife's a murderer. You knew what that-" He broke off abruptly and looked away, blinking fast, and it was several moments before he could trust himself to speak again. He stood there with his hands at his sides, fists clenched, and when he made eye contact again he was trembling with emotion. "You knew what that did to me. How was this supposed to help, watching you commit murder? Was I supposed to be okay with that? Is that what you thought? You thought Dr. Idiot'll just go back to the suburbs and drive a Volvo and make babies with the assassin? Is that what I was supposed to do after you destroyed yourself in front of me? If they'd shot you...How many more times are you going to take yourself out of my life? Put me through that, you bastard?" Now in spite of his rage-or maybe because of it-tears were running down his face, mortifying Sherlock no less than himself, and he turned away, pressing the heels of his hands hard against his eyes and breathing like he'd run a race. " _Fuck_."

Sherlock stared at his back, appalled by the intensity of John's emotion, and for the first time that night his own sense of ill-use and righteousness faltered.

John brushed angrily at his face, regaining a fraction of his self-control, then turned to face him again. "No more, Sherlock," he said. "This, what you just tried to do? This is a deal-breaker."

"It was the only way!"

"I'm not talking about Magnussen!" John yelled. "I'm talking about _you_ deciding for me who's in my life. _You_ decide whether I spend two years thinking you're dead. Whether I spend the rest of my life watching you rot in prison, watching you throw away everything you are..." He turned away again, despairing, and after a few seconds said, as though to himself, "Jesus, Sherlock, the _waste!_ "

The naked grief in his voice held Sherlock silent. This degree of intense emotion, and from John, no less, was entirely outside his competence to handle. He had no idea what to say, no idea what to do, no point of reference. In no way was he ashamed of having tried to kill a man, but its wholly unexpected effect on John overfaced and distressed him extremely. Then, too, his own emotions were still far too raw and unfamiliar-an unfathomable mare's nest-for him to confront them effectively. On the other hand he readily accepted the suggestion that he made a strategic error at Appledore, and that was something he could consider with a much greater degree of dispassion and therefore comfort.

"I concede that..." he began coldly, too disconcerted to read the warning in John's expression. "That I let my emotions get the better of me. I failed to consider that my goals would be difficult or impossible to carry out if-"

"The problem's not that you made a tactical mistake," John yelled, "it's that you just shit-canned everything you say you love: your reason, your objectivity-"

"Sorry!" Sherlock shouted back, not because he was but because he couldn't think of anything else to say that had the least hope of stemming John's apparently boundless disappointment in him.

"For what?" John demanded. "What are you sorry for, Sherlock? For having to sit there while I shout at you? For trying to commit murder? What? Tell me." Sulky silence. "If all you're going to do is say what you think I want to hear, then just keep your damned mouth shut."

But Sherlock was incapable of keeping his damned mouth shut. "I'm sorry I'm innately depraved," he snarled.

"Oh, spare me!" John shouted. "Don't give me that self-pity crap, you egomaniacal twat. You're not a killer. You're not even a sociopath. You're Sherlock Goddamned Holmes and you _will_ live up to that!"

"Why?" Now he _was_ defiant.

John stared at him, then said, his voice low and taut, "Because _that_ is what good men do, Sherlock. They live up to themselves. You are the man who lives by his mind and you are too _good_ to throw that away on murder. It is _beneath_ you."

" _You've_ killed people," Sherlock snapped back, embarrassed even as the words left his mouth by the schoolyard quality of the argument.

"I was in a war!" John shouted. "People were shooting at me. At my patients. And don't you _dare_ open your mouth about the cabbie. Does the great student of crime really need me to explain the difference between murder and self-defence? Do I have to define 'imminence' to you? What the hell happened tonight? Magnussen surprised you? That's it? You found out that the big scary blackmailer doesn't even have proof of his accusations. I'm sorry: How is that a bad thing?"

"Do I have to write it down for you?" Sherlock cried. "He knows who Mary used to be! If he's dead that information dies with him."

"I _get_ it! He can put her in prison for the rest of her life. Jesus, Sherlock, do you think maybe prison's where she belongs? You know what she did in Russia and for that you're willing to throw your life away?"

"No," Sherlock shot back. "Not 'throw it away' and not for her."

John understood him: What Sherlock offered tonight-his life and his freedom-was no more than what John would pay for Sherlock's life; no more, in fact, than what he'd already risked many times over the years.

"It's not just about her crimes," Sherlock went on. "It's about what happens when her enemies catch up to her. I can't protect you from that!"

John had heard this theme repeated so often over the last three months that he was sick and bloody tired of it, and this fresh iteration just proved that he wasn't getting through to Sherlock. "Listen to me," he said with a real effort not to yell because that wouldn't help Sherlock hear him. "What Magnussen has on Mary is a threat, but it's a _future_ threat. It's not _imminent_. We have time to find a way short of you committing murder."

"Oh, for God's sake, John," Sherlock yelled, "where have you been for the last three months? I've tried 'other ways.' Nothing I did even touched Magnussen. How much more time do you want me to give him before he decides that today's the day? Weeks? Years? What do you want your life expectancy to be? Let me know so I can put it in my planner and free up time for other cases!"

"Why would he even do that?" John cried. "You said yourself blackmailers don't have leverage unless they're holding something over your head. Once they pull the trigger they've got nothing!"

"Oh, well," Sherlock said, his voice dripping sarcasm, "I didn't know you were willing to trust your life to the predictability of a blackmailing sadist, but when you put it like that-"

"Of course I don't _trust_ him, dammit, and that's not the point."

"It's exactly the point!"

"No, Sherlock, the point is that murdering people will _destroy_ you!"

That outburst shocked them both into silence: John didn't mean to say it and Sherlock didn't know what to make of it. John had never tried to explain to anyone-not even his therapist-how killing a human being changed a person, nor about the psychological toll it took to regain one's own humanity afterwards. He wasn't up to the task on the fly like this, but if ever he had a reason to try, he had one now.

He lowered himself into his own chair and leant forward, and while he was no calmer than a moment ago he managed not to shout. "Sherlock," he said, his voice low. "You've seen death. Hundreds of times. We both have. You can comb through a murder scene and I can dissect a cadaver and we don't go to pieces because it's our job not to. You've stood over hundreds of bodies and not felt anything and that makes you effective, but you've never stood over a dead man and been the one who put him there. And I am telling you, mate: Whether you're justified or not, there is no such thing as objectivity when a human being is dead by your own hand."

Sherlock looked away coldly and never replied, and for all John knew he'd decided to avoid the whole conflict by 'filtering,' the infuriating process by which he blocked out anything he didn't care to hear-or in this case didn't know how to handle: Sherlock's morbid distrust of emotions left him singularly ill-equipped to cope with a situation in which emotions were running so high on both sides.

Yet his face didn't have that inward-dwelling expression that was usual when he filtered and he was still agitatedly bouncing his knee, something he never did when he prowled the corridors of his 'mind palace.' Somehow his silence felt to John like the beginning of receptiveness, as though he was willing to hear him out and was merely waiting for a direct question that wasn't rhetorical or accusatory. Unfortunately John didn't have any of those ready to hand. With his first gust of rage spent and without a clear direction to pursue he fell silent, and there they remained: each convinced of his inability to adequately convey his fear and anger, and neither aware that he'd already eloquently done so.

ooooo

John had never been so irate with anyone in his life, not even with Sherlock, as infuriating as he often was, nor (with the exceptions of finding him near death with a bullet in his chest and watching him plunge from a rooftop) had he ever been as afraid for him as he'd been at Appledore. And he was angry with Sherlock not just because he'd scared the bloody hell out of him-again-but because he'd abandoned so much of what John admired about him: his self-possession, his resourcefulness, his reason. So much of what made him human. Until a few hours ago the idea that such a feral, animal loss of control was even possible for Sherlock was laughable.

Yet now that he was thinking about it John realized that he'd had hints of the phenomenon in the past, although to a much lesser degree and certainly without such dire consequences. As agile as his mind was, as glibly as he was able to improvise and take things on the half-volley, Sherlock could still be brought to a standstill by something utterly and unexpectedly new if he wasn't already equipped to handle it or hadn't anticipated it. So few things fell into this category that John almost never saw him that way, but he _had_ seen it and it was one of his friend's few tactical weaknesses. Sherlock was so certain of being able to see around corners-and from John's perspective so often did-that when he failed to do so it always created a degree of crisis. Dartmoor was the most dramatic example of his tendency to vapor-lock and then react badly when his self-image and certainty were shaken, but it wasn't the only one John knew of. Even his reaction to the implications of John's best man request was typical of the detective caught completely off his guard. There were people who throve on uncertainty, but Sherlock, a man who kept a sock index, for God's sake, was not one of them. His trenchant observational skills, although a source of pleasure in their own right, also served the crucial purpose of allowing him to gain and keep control by assuring him that regardless of the situation he'd always have enough information to act with decision and efficacy.

And it almost invariably worked. From the day they met, Sherlock won John's respect and admiration as a thinking man who was at his best when things were at their worst: an opponent who was never more dangerous than when he was cornered because he would think not only of _a_ clever way to defeat his enemies, but _the_ clever way. He was cornered tonight, so what changed? Why tonight had his answer to John's question, 'We have a plan, right?' for the first time ever been an unequivocal 'No'? _Fear_. Throw real fear into the mix, and for the man who could see around corners and knew he'd run out of options, the only remaining question was the scale of the melt-down.

John was not about to blame himself for Appledore, but he wished now that he'd done more to anticipate it, knowing Sherlock's history as he did. _You see but you do not observe_ , Sherlock liked to say, and Christ, was that ever true tonight: He'd seen the signs but not observed them, and still less had he foreseen the implications. Still, even if he had been thinking like a genius, in his wildest imaginings he'd not have guessed that Sherlock would ever resort to murder.

If anger followed hard on the heels of fear for John, however, the same probably applied to Sherlock. Sherlock's unvarying Magnussen-related theme was that the publisher could reveal Mary to her enemies and thereby endanger John. The anxiety this inspired was easy enough for John to grasp; after all, he spent a good deal of his own time in a state of alarm for Sherlock's sake. It might be awkward for him to examine too closely, but he understood the source of Sherlock's fear. Also, for reasons unknown to John, Sherlock harboured an intensely personal animus toward Magnussen that was unique in John's experience with him.

In nearly every way and with complete justification, Sherlock possessed a continent-sized ego, but his other tactical weakness was that he nursed something of an inferiority complex about his older brother. Mycroft could retain vast numbers of concepts and percepts and effortlessly extrapolate potential or probable outcomes from dozens of combinations and variables involving them. To a lesser degree Sherlock possessed the same ability, but he conceded his brother's superiority and in fact it was partly why he'd needed Mycroft's help to fake his death.

And Mycroft was apparently not the only one whose skill outstripped Sherlock's. Lacking physical records and evidence on his blackmail victims, Charles Magnussen necessarily retained all that information in his head. In John's presence Mycroft had stated unequivocally that Magnussen was under his protection. At the time Mycroft made that statement Sherlock faced the prospect of fighting the combined talents of his brother and Magnussen cheerfully, as a challenge, but just hours later he'd lain dying on the floor of Magnussen's rooms-and everything had changed.

Until tonight Sherlock never had anything so important to him at stake and been unable to defend it. When he could see a way to fight he'd keep going until it killed him, but tonight he'd been disarmed of his usual weapon and he believed himself out of options. That rage and fear he was shedding like a virus: John suddenly remembered where he'd seen it before: in rookies exposed to real fire for the first time in their lives.

Sherlock froze his first time in this kind of battle.

Not once, not for a second, did John doubt Sherlock's courage, but even very brave men were afraid of something. Combine fear with perceived helplessness-something outside all his experience-and it was no wonder he reacted badly. Rookies were added to teams one at a time just for that reason: their unpredictability. There was a related phenomenon that John had seen in others and experienced himself, which was that men who were skilled or even lethal with one weapon or fighting style could be rendered almost entirely ineffective when suddenly forced to fight with another. None of the intellectual weapons Sherlock used to such devastating effect did him a bit of good against the combined talents of Mycroft and Magnussen.

The army taught John a lot of things, but its most valuable lessons taught him about himself. He knew that a person's self-image changed the first time he was in a literal fight for the first time, whether it was a pub brawl or a full-scale battle in a war zone. Sometimes the self-image survived intact and sometimes it was destroyed beyond repair, but it always changed, and no one knew how a fighter would react until he took live fire for the first time. John knew that first-hand and he'd seen the phenomenon repeatedly.

He'd been away from the army for too long. He should have recognized the red flags. _Just the two of us against the rest of the world_ , Sherlock said once. Sherlock knew that he and John were fighting a war. Mycroft knew it, too: _When you walk with Sherlock Holmes you see the battlefield_.

 _Welcome to the party, Watson_ , John thought bitterly. _You're the veteran. Stand up and take the goddamned lead_.

ooooo

For as long as he could remember Sherlock had been unable to tolerate boredom, by which he'd always meant insufficient work for his mind, but he had any number of things to occupy his attention now. Auditory exclusion, for one. An interesting phenomenon and one he'd never experienced before, but obviously his brain wasn't immune because the pistol's muzzle flash had been accompanied by dead silence-and then John put him down so fast and so hard that time skipped a step and the next thing he remembered was being jerked upright, already handcuffed, as the target of his wrath walked away unscathed.

 _One_ target of his wrath. His loathsome brother was the other. All his life he'd competed against Mycroft and not once had he come out ahead. Always Mycroft sailed effortlessly past him. Until now that competition was a one-sided academic exercise, meaningless except for all the ways it shaped his personality and outlook (some of which he even recognized), but it had never before been the case that losing to Mycroft would threaten the destruction of someone he loved.

John obviously thought he should regret what he'd done, but the only thing he regretted was that he didn't actually do it. Given another opportunity to end Magnussen he'd take it. _Murdering people will destroy you_. Ridiculous. John killed any number of people in the war, not to mention the cabbie on their very first case together, and he'd never turned a hair that Sherlock could tell. He was the most admirable human being Sherlock knew, so did John expect him to believe that if it weren't for having killed a few people he'd flutter about with wings and a halo? No, John was wrong about killing. Had to be wrong. Sherlock knew perfectly amiable murderers and utterly vile law-abiding people, from which he concluded that the willingness to kill was not itself a disqualifying character trait, whatever John thought.

And for all John's wisdom he obviously didn't understand that if there'd been an alternative to killing Magnussen, Sherlock by definition would have seen it. Nor in spite of Sherlock's repeated warnings did John seem even now to grasp the danger to himself and the futility of facing the combined skills of Mycroft and Magnussen. Given all that and the true nature of the Appledore vaults, Sherlock made the obvious decision to cut the Gordian knot. Why John was so exercised about that he couldn't conceive.

In any case, all this anger of John's was just his misguided hero-worshipping at work, and he might not be so dismayed now if he'd had a window into Sherlock's mind then. _No chance to be a hero today, Mr. Holmes_ , Magnussen taunted. _I'm not a hero,_ he'd snarled back. How much evidence did John need before he figured that out?

Would a hero have made John submit to Magnussen's particularly cruel brand of humiliation, or was that the act of a coward paralyzed by the discovery that he'd fatally misjudged his enemy and miscalculated beyond recovery? Sherlock had been afraid before and that was bad enough, but until now he'd never been able to accuse himself of cowardice.

Reason armoured him against fear in the common sense, against the uncertainty, doubts, and fog that so many people experienced as a daily fact of life. It was the source of his authentic self-confidence in his ability to think and act effectively. Tonight the abyss that yawned beneath his feet when he grasped the enormity of his failure terrified him because that was his reason telling him that Magnussen had beaten him, check and mate. There were no cards left for the great consulting detective to play. There was no recourse, no leverage, nothing to offer in trade. No way to arrest his fall. Nothing but the knowledge that his brother would back his enemy, that he'd go to prison for espionage, and that from there he would watch helplessly as Mary destroyed John at her leisure. John. Magnussen's _asset_. Even now Sherlock's lip curled in outrage at the thought.

So because Sherlock was at a loss and afraid, there stood John- _John_ , of all people-submitting to a sadist's cruelty at a coward's behest, appealing to that same coward for permission to stop the assault. _Permission denied_. John endured the humiliation because he trusted Sherlock, trusted that he knew what he was doing, that he'd weighed the alternatives and the consequences, that he had a reason for all of it, even for asking him not to fight back: a plan, options, a way to win and the nerve to try.

Sherlock had none of it. _There's for your big hero, John_ , he thought bitterly _._ The rage that welled up inside him had joined frustration, resentment, shame, and fear, all concentrated into overpowering contempt-for Magnussen, for himself-and leaving a single imperative: End this now. Make it right beyond recall. For John. God, even for his arsehole brother. Keep John safe. With the last free action he ever took, Sherlock was going to see to that. _You keep all that information in your head? Then say bye-bye to the Appledore vault_.

It was self-evidently a good idea at the time: Remove a future deadly threat to John and as a serendipitous side effect relieve the guilt and self-contempt he felt about his own failure-but all he'd really accomplished was to expose John to the immediate deadly threat of the soldiers' fire and-apparently-cause him more suffering than the sadistic blackmailer ever dreamed of.

In despair he leant forward, propping his elbows on his knees, and raked his fingers through his hair. God, his head ached. "Permission to stand up," he said, but he couldn't keep the sarcasm and anger out of his voice even then.

John glared at him. "Do whatever the hell you want."

Sherlock stalked off to the bathroom and swallowed ten Paramols. Sulked. 'Do whatever the hell you want' was pretty open-ended, but annoyingly it was also really effective reverse psychology. Although clearly it was possible to be surfeited with John's concern, the alternative-his indifference-was worse. In any case Mycroft's people were obviously sitting on the flat and would report his movements if he left. Briefly he considered going out and evading them just to prove that he could, but he found abruptly that he cared far less about that than about conciliating John's forgiveness. Unfortunately he could think of nothing likely to do that while John was so irate. Still, the last thing he was doing-sitting in his fireside chair-at least had the virtue of not increasing John's anger, so having dosed himself he returned, still coldly furious with himself and the world.

As far as Sherlock could tell, John objected to attempted murder for its own sake, but that alone couldn't explain what had him so emotionally gutted. _How could you think that was okay?_ Well, it wasn't as though he'd stopped to weigh John's idea of proper guest etiquette against the practical benefits of eliminating Magnussen. There'd been no time for weighing much of anything with Mycroft and his toy soldiers closing in; no time for a survey of John's preferred method of not getting killed by Mary's enemies that was consonant with his sense of propriety. Sherlock didn't know what the hell John expected: With a double-digit prison term virtually certain by then it made perfect sense to go all-in. At least, he'd thought so at the time. To the extent that he'd been thinking at all. Which, now that he was at leisure to reflect, he'd not been doing much of. Not a lot of thinking. Far too much feeling.

 _Murdering people will destroy you_. Not killing. Murdering. John had killed people, and on the vanishingly rare occasions when he mentioned the fact he always seemed displeased by it, but wasn't that one of the things soldiers prided themselves on the most? Kills? Wasn't that in fact the whole point of fighting a war, to kill more of the enemy than the reverse? No, he didn't need John to explain the difference between murder and self-defence, nor between murder and killing in battle, but he also wasn't sure why John drew the distinction or even whether it was deliberate: For such an intelligent man John could be sadly imprecise in his speech. Well, perhaps he should assume that John made the distinction intentionally, as being more likely than the alternative. Would the psychology of a soldier in battle be materially different from what Sherlock experienced tonight? Did a soldier not call on his ability to depersonalize his opponent, and did the officers not work their troops into a pitch of hatred for the enemy? Sherlock didn't know. John's lowering, closed-off expression didn't encourage questioning and Sherlock wasn't even certain what to ask, so what emerged when he opened his mouth contained only the vaguest intimation of what he really wanted to say.

"What's Delaram?"

Another glare. "It's in Afghanistan."

"I meant-"

"I know what you meant. It's none of your damned business."

Sherlock wasn't a long-suffering man, but to his credit and in contravention of his inclinations he refrained from making a retort. Yet his gesture, feeble though it was, still conveyed a hint of its real purpose to John, who, after another minute or so, got up, found an ice bag in the freezer, wrapped it in a tea towel, and handed it to him.

Wincing, Sherlock gingerly pressed the bag to the back of his head.

"That hurt?" John asked, when he'd sat down again.

"Yes."

"Good."

"I don't understand why everyone thinks you're the nice one," Sherlock muttered.

John wasn't ready to smile about that or anything else, but he interpreted it correctly as a flag of truce. After a few more minutes passed in silence he cleared his throat and in as calm a tone as he could muster said, "Something I want to say."

With his elbow on the armrest and his head at an awkward angle as he held the ice, Sherlock looked at him: Willing to hear it.

"The first time I met your brother-obviously not knowing he was your brother-he said something that I haven't really thought of again until now. Basically he compared associating with you to enlisting to fight a war."

"Pfft," Sherlock scoffed. "That's exactly the sort of meaningless overwrought rubbish-"

"Yeah, well, he was right. We are fighting for something. I don't know what, exactly. Queen and country? Truth, justice, and the American way? I don't know. What I do know is that compared to this...this _thing_ going on with Magnussen and Mary, everything you've done so far has been training. All the stuff with Moriarty, running around three continents taking out his network: Sometimes it was dangerous, sometimes it was fun, but compared to what you're doing now it was just training."

Sherlock was listening, but he wasn't sure he agreed. "Felt real in Serbia."

"Yeah? How did Serbia compare to how you felt tonight? Better or worse?"

"Not worse," Sherlock admitted.

"No matter how real it seems or how tough it is, when you train to fight it's still _training_. It's not the same as taking live fire. It can't be. When it's for real: When you really fight for the first time and you _know_ that losing means you could die, you might be as brave as you always wanted to be or you might not, but either way what you think about yourself is going to change. Always. And even when someone's an expert at one sort of fighting, if you force him to fight in another style or with a different weapon than he's used to it's like putting him back at Day One. He's going to get schooled.

"You know how you can spot rookies in their first battle? They duck. Makes no sense, but people can't help it. It's totally normal, but you have to train yourself out of it. You have to, or you won't be able to function. There's no point, anyway: The bullets you can hear already missed you. When you're under fire you get two options. You can stand up and do your job or you can curl into a ball, but the fire finds both kinds of people and you don't get a choice about that. Your only choice is about what you're going to be doing if it does.

"It was your first time in this kind of fight, Sherlock. You ducked, and Magnussen won."

Sherlock didn't like that, either, but it was self-evidently true. "Agreed," he said grudgingly.

"Well? What are you going to do about it?" The trapped look was back: Sherlock had already done everything about Magnussen that he could think of. "I don't mean Magnussen," John said. "I mean about you. 'Cause how you think about yourself changed tonight, yeah?"

"Yes."

"Happy about it?"

"No."

"Then fix it. You learn and maybe change tactics the next time and you don't fight on your enemy's terms. Decide how you want to think about yourself. Decide and act. That's what you're good at. And I'll tell you this, mate, to clue you in while you're thinking about it: The most dangerous thing about you is your mind."

Sherlock lifted the bag, which had begun dripping ice water down the back of his neck, and dropped it on the floor. "Was that as profound as it sounded, or am I concussed?"

"Yes."

Sherlock sighed. "It wasn't just Magnussen," he said. "It's Mycroft, too. You know what he's like. Magnussen retains all that information on people here-" pointed to his head "-but Mycroft can do the same."

"So can you. I've seen you."

"No. Not like that. Not at that level. He's smarter than I am, John, don't you see it? He's always been smarter. I really was the stupid one in the family. I can't fight him."

"You fight him all the time. You get off on it. And you get the better of him. I've seen you do it. Why suddenly are you so sure he's invincible?"

Sherlock shook his head. "I defy him and irritate him and inconvenience him. That's not the same as fighting. It's certainly not winning. With Magnussen under Mycroft's protection-"

"Sherlock...Are you... _afraid_ of your brother?"

"Yes!" Almost shouting. Then more quietly: " _Yes_. You should be, too. You would be, if you weren't so..." He stopped.

"If I weren't so stupid?"

"If you weren't so damned sure that I'm infallible."

"I think I'm pretty clear on your fallibility, thanks."

"John, you were there. You saw them together. Mycroft bought Magnussen's silence tonight, which means he's got too much at stake-probably more than before-to get out of the way now. He's been protecting Magnussen and that won't change. I don't think he'd go as far as threatening you, but-"

John snorted. It was not in his nature to fear the kind of man he thought Mycroft was. Besides, he believed that Sherlock had an outsized notion of his brother's formidability. Sherlock's gravity on the point impressed him, though-not because he believed he was right, but because it told him how thoroughly he'd convinced himself that Mycroft was unbeatable. In John's view, anyone who spent his days manipulating people and molding their behaviour so he could use it for his own ends was little better than a common scam artist. From what he'd seen, the integrity and independence that he admired in Sherlock didn't make up any part of Mycroft's nature, so while Mycroft might have more raw intellect, in John's world view Sherlock was the better man.

Sherlock was still trying to convince him otherwise. "John, do not underestimate him. You don't respect his work and how he does it, but don't let that blind you to what he's capable of. He can't have you damaged physically because he knows I'd-" The words 'kill him' were on his lips but he changed it just in time to 'stop him' "-but he could ruin you, and I can't protect you from that."

Great. They were back to that. Sherlock's one-note song for the last fiscal quarter. "'Protect me,'" John repeated. "Yeah, let me ask you this. You know, for information purposes only: At any point in this friendship are you going to act like there are two of us in it?"

"Sorry?"

"Why do you think you have to do this alone?"

Sherlock frowned like he didn't understand the question. "You said 'friends protect people.'"

Confusion. "When?"

"I said, 'Alone is what I have. Alone protects me.' You said, 'No. Friends protect people.'"

Abruptly John realized what he was talking about. "Yeah, but they don't do it alone!" he cried in exasperation. "What happened to 'the two of us against the world'? When did that-" He was about to say, 'change,' but realized with a shock that he knew when. _You'll hardly need me around now that you've got a real baby on the way_.

How many times had he berated Sherlock for his insusceptibility? Yet the one time he dropped his guard and essentially confessed to needing something from him, John turned away and distanced _himself_ with a lame-arse joke. _Just one word, Sherlock. That's all I would have needed._ What was Sherlock looking for at that moment? Just one thing. _I'll_ always _need you around_. John rubbed his eyes. _Jesus, Watson, how could you be so thick?_

With nothing but his own socially conventional life to draw from, John had a hard time fully grasping the extent of Sherlock's isolation, but taking that with his already aloof, unapproachable nature, was it really so surprising that he consistently acted like he'd never even seen a friendship conducted before?

He was looking quizzically at John now. "When did that what?" he prompted, when John remained silent.

John squared himself up, the way he had at Sherlock's grave. _Stand up and take the goddamned lead_. "Shut up," he said.

"O...kay..."

"Shut up. I am _not_ good at this sort of thing, so just shut. Up." He took a moment to collect his thoughts. "There are things I should have said so you understood. Things I wanted to say, but couldn't. Not to anyone and definitely not to you. I'm telling you now because if my choice is between...between saying it or watching you jump off a roof every time I turn around, then..." He cleared his throat. His shoulders were rigid with tension but he never broke eye contact, because he'd been a coward and this was how he would atone for that. "You are not in this alone, Sherlock. Not in this life. Not in this friendship. As long as I am alive you will never. Be. Alone."

Sherlock stared at him. He'd had a pretty good idea for a while now how his staged suicide affected John. Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson spared no effort to impress upon him the enormity of the deception, while John himself dispensed with any remaining ambiguity he might have entertained on the subject. Sherlock preferred to think of it as what he'd done _for_ rather than _to_ John, and he'd had good reasons for deceiving everyone, reasons which he'd explained repeatedly and at length. Still, the consensus was that watching him 'die' was the most shattering thing that ever happened to John.

What did not occur to him until this very second was that for John, watching him attempt murder was the psychological equivalent of witnessing his death-again.

 _Murdering people will destroy you_. His head went up in the unconscious, habitual gesture that signified sudden understanding because he saw it then: The unspoken end of that sentence was, _and our friendship_. Of all the things Sherlock thought were at stake on the Appledore patio he'd not seen the most important one, but John understood it in his soul.

Their friendship. He'd always been John's friend, but not always in the way that John expected. He'd never been friendship material in his life and clearly he was making an utter hash of it now, but what struck him even more forcefully was the realization that he _wanted_ to be good at it. As good as John was. As good a man as John was. _Good men live up to themselves._

Maybe they also lived up to their friends.

"I'm sorry." He blinked, looking surprised that he spoke.

John had been watching him, a bit puzzled to know what he was thinking. The way Sherlock processed his best man request looked a lot like this. He hiked an eyebrow. "For?"

"For trying to kill Magnussen."

John didn't answer, but in his sceptical expression the 'Why?' was implied.

"Because," Sherlock said, looking down, and there was a long pause before he looked up again and met John's eyes. "Because I said that Mary and I had a lifetime to prove that we'd never let you down and it took one month and four months, respectively, for me to be wrong about that."

John didn't answer right away, but he looked thoughtful. "It's a start," he said finally.

"In my defence, she went first," Sherlock added.

John rubbed his eyes tiredly. "How much Paramol did you take?"

"Five grams." And defensively, off John's look, "I have a high tolerance."

John sighed. "Any nausea? Dizziness?"

"No. But if you could be a bit less shouty, that would be very helpful."

"Put the ice back on," John said, and when Sherlock had complied he said, "All right. What's Magnussen got on your brother?"

Sherlock laughed without humour. "Nothing. What could he have? Mycroft's above reproach. Always has been. He's not protecting himself. He's protecting his little empire, his little chessboard of politicians and royals and governments."

"But with all that power he could destroy Magnussen himself. Why doesn't he?"

"Symbiosis," Sherlock sneered.

"Sorry?"

"Something he said before we left for Appledore. That Magnussen never causes him too much trouble and sometimes he's even useful."

John wasn't buying it. "No. No way. People don't act like that when they have something that impersonal at stake. Magnussen has his world under his thumb, but Mycroft lets it go on. I'm telling you, Sherlock: He's got something personal involved. What is it? Besides you, what does your brother care about?" Sherlock started to reply and John added, "And don't tell me he doesn't care. Because he's acting like someone who cares about something a lot."

"He is, isn't he?" Sherlock said thoughtfully. He considered the problem but he really didn't know what that 'something' was. Human psychology-even his brother's psychology-wasn't his area. There were some invariable truths, some patterns, some common elements that most people shared, and those things allowed him to make certain assumptions and categorical pronouncements; he could perceive concretes, assign causes, and project likely responses based on averages or popular tendencies, but none of that signified fundamental _understanding_ at an instinctive operating level. That was John's department.

"I grant your expertise in the area of human psychology, John, but this is Mycroft we're talking about."

"And?" John said. "He's human. Roughly. Maybe Magnussen didn't get hold of something recent. Something from Mycroft's past? From school? Something about your parents, even? How long has he known Magnussen? When did Magnussen start putting all this pressure on him?"

These were all excellent questions that Sherlock had never asked. For as long as he'd known of Magnussen he'd known that the man had his brother trapped, but he'd always assumed that the victims were Mycroft's politicians, not the irreproachable Mycroft himself.

"I don't know," he admitted. "Mycroft protects his politicians, though, and they're nearly all eminently blackmail-able." He dismissed the whole idea with a wave of his hand. "No. That's...You're on the wrong track, John. Mycroft's impervious. Above reproach. He always has been. Since we were boys."

John shook his head. "He might be above reproach objectively, but everyone's got something they're ashamed of, whether it's rational or not. When they're young people do a lot of stupid things. Not criminal things, necessarily, but things that would be embarrassing if their families or co-workers found out. They _feel_ guilt and shame even when there's no good reason to feel that way, you know?"

"No. But I concede that you do and that people are irrational and therefore likely to feel guilt without cause."

"Great. Well? What could Magnussen have on Mycroft?"

"Nothing. Mycroft's not irrational."

John went on as though he hadn't answered. "University is usually where people make screw-ups they're humiliated by for the rest of their lives."

"Is it?" Sherlock was far more used to seeing people ruin their lives criminally. "Like what?"

"I don't know. Getting pissed and throwing up in your girlfriend's mum's car. Group sex. Stealing signs off the motorway. You know."

Sherlock stared at him. "You did that?"

"No. I didn't. I'm just saying. What about drugs?"

Contempt. "Mycroft was too _frightened_ to try anything."

John rubbed his forehead; he had enough on his plate right now without getting drawn into a debate about narcotics. "All right," he said finally, "Mycroft's a perfect angel. Then tell me this."

"Yes?"

"Magnussen makes a big deal about knowing everyone's pressure points, right?"

"Obviously."

"Well, what's his?"

Sherlock gave a bitter, self-recriminatory laugh. "I thought it was power," he said. "Stupid. He doesn't need a laptop full of state secrets when he's got Mycroft Holmes."

"Well...what does he do with the information he gets on his victims? Their money for his silence? That's how it usually works, right?"

"No," Sherlock said. "That's what's so brilliant about it. He never meets the legal standard for menace. Just tells people that he knows their secret and lets the obvious implications do the rest. Occasionally he compels them to do things that benefit him. A regulation streamlining the process of firing unionized workers, that sort of thing. But he's just as likely to tell people that he knows and never ask for anything at all. Even when he does, he doesn't say, 'If you don't block that law I'll publish your affairs.' It's, 'That proposal to ban dumping newspaper ink in the Thames sounds rubbish, doesn't it?' Besides, it's separated from his original contact with his victims by so much time that no one could possibly prove the two events are associated. But of course the victims get the message."

John considered that, then said, "So the blackmail's not about money and it's not even really about power, except..."

"What?" Sherlock asked impatiently, dropping the ice bag to the floor again. He couldn't see why John was having a problem with this.

"It's just...He enjoys the hell out of having all that influence, yeah? Telling people he can ruin them but never actually doing it. What if that's his pressure point? If there were a way to discredit him he might lose all that leverage."

Sherlock threw up his hands. "How do you expect to do that when there's no physical evidence? Global media empire, John. Does that ring any bells? You can't discredit him. He'll sue, and he's got the finances to out-lawyer anyone."

"Yeah, you know, that's what he said: 'I'm in news, moron.' I get it. But lawsuits work both ways, and I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how a guy with zero evidence is a blackmailer instead of just a slander suit waiting to happen."

"Libel."

"What?"

"Slander is spoken. Newspaper, therefore libel."

"Whatever. He said all he has to do is print something and people will assume it's true. But that's crap, Sherlock. You know damned well people believe anything if they hear it repeated often enough. That's how advertising works. Politicians get caught with their pants down every day, but if they claim they're innocent six thousand times people start to believe it. All someone has to do is sue the guy and start denying his accusations."

"Good luck," Sherlock said. "By definition his victims don't want their problems made public, and even if blackmail weren't notoriously difficult to prove, he hasn't done anything actionable. The first person who brought suit would be countersued for defamation."

"Really? Because as soon as everybody lands in court it all comes out that he's got nothing. Whether the lawsuits end up dismissed or not, all people would remember is that he's got no proof of his accusations. That's the last thing he wants anyone to know. And at least that way the victims aren't running around terrified that he's going to reveal them," John added.

Sherlock looked at him as though he was mad. "Well, no, because in that scenario they've revealed themselves. What idiot would volunteer for that?"

"Anyone who's tired of being afraid, I'd think, but the point is he doesn't have any proof."

Sherlock clutched his head with a low groan of frustration. "I told you, John: The victims don't have any proof that he threatened them, either. They've got nothing. You can't go to court and say, 'He insinuated at me.' Don't you see how clever that is? Absent audio or video evidence that he made a specific demand in exchange for silence, he's got nothing to worry about."

"Sherlock, you're thinking like a genius detective trying to build a case that'll stand up in court. Think like the rest of us do. Think sloppy. Forget about the legal stuff. You don't have to win in a court of law. You have to win in the court of public opinion."

Sherlock didn't reply and John took that as encouraging. At least he wasn't getting shot down. "Try this," he went on. "Magnussen's got a board of directors to worry about. He answers to them and to shareholders who vote. How many victims are out there? How much bad publicity and potential lawsuits do you think one board of directors wants their company tied up in? Major shareholders aren't going to just sit on their hands, you know. I know it sounds vague to you because you're used to dealing with hard evidence and facts, but I'm telling you, Magnussen's right about one thing: You don't have to prove it. You just have to print it. Or broadcast it. Or whatever. We just need one person to stand up and get it all started."

"That's what Lady Smallwood said," Sherlock said bitterly. "'One person.'"

"When?"

"When she hired me."

"I think she's right," John said. "One person to stand up and make a scene. If the man on the street finds out who Magnussen is and hates him, great, but the point is that all his victims find out that the vaults don't exist. People think his threats are real. What if they stop believing that? If he has zero proof of anyone's guilt, then what's he relying on? His reputation. People are afraid he's got proof and they feel guilty, besides. Once everyone knows he's got nothing, he's got nothing. No leverage, no power. You challenge him to produce his evidence, and he can't."

"He urinated in our fireplace, John. I'm reasonably certain he doesn't care about his reputation."

"I don't mean like that. Sherlock: Haven't you wondered why he bothers? I mean, it's a lot of work, putting out feelers for the kind of information he collects, paying for it, remembering all of it. You must have seen other people like that: always angling for an advantage over everybody. Those sorts of people feel like they don't exist unless someone notices them. They're terrified of being alone with themselves. You must have seen them when you were in school. The minute you sit down alone in a corner to read it attracts them like flies and they won't shut up because you're not noticing them and they can't stand it. People like you drive people like that mental."

Sherlock looked at him with narrowed eyes. He'd met _a lot_ of people like that. The idea that such people were _afraid-_ afraid of being alone with themselves-was new and interesting. "It's not just inborn vexatiousness?"

"No," John said confidently. "If Magnussen stepped down from that company tomorrow and offered you his job, would you take it? The chance to influence the thoughts and opinions of millions of people?"

Disgust. "Of course not. I can't imagine anything more dull."

"Yeah, _you_ think it's dull because you have a life. But to someone like him, making other people notice him _is_ his life. It's his day job and his hobby. You think Magnussen's the way he is because he's confident? That's why you're the way you are. It's why you can afford not to care what anyone thinks and why you'd be bored rigid trying to influence them. _He's_ like he is because he's nothing unless he can affect other people. It's a dead giveaway, mate: The harder someone works to control other people, the bigger zero they are inside."

Sherlock sat bouncing his knee, starting to see the possibilities, but he just as quickly abandoned them. "No. That can't work," he said, frustration lacing his voice. "You met him. Did he seem concerned about your opinion? Did he seem _frightened_ to you?"

"It's not that kind of fear," John insisted. "People don't sit up at night biting their nails over things like that. It motivates them, but it's not conscious. What if the most important thing to him isn't the power he can get to use for himself, but the influence he has over other people?"

"That's the same thing," Sherlock said with a scowl.

"No," John said. "It's not. Some people, if they can't get love or fame they'll take fear and hate, but what they can't take is being ignored because they're nothing if other people aren't aware of them. If people stop being afraid of Magnussen they get on with their lives and forget about him."

"And you think that's his pressure point."

"I don't know. I'm just saying it's worth thinking about. No one's ever been able to get to him using money or political power, though. Maybe it's time to try another way."

Sherlock fell silent, thinking, and after a few minutes he said, as though to himself, "If you're right, Mycroft becomes irrelevant. From his perspective, any victim who came forward would be doing it on his own initiative. Magnussen would be in the same position, not knowing that anyone other than the victim was involved; he'd have no specific reason to suspect our involvement and therefore no specific reason to pull the trigger on Mary-and Magnussen and Mycroft would both have their hands full with the fallout."

The idea had considerable appeal for Sherlock, because Mary couldn't afford to wait too much longer to carry out whatever she had planned for him and John. Even assuming Magnussen could be disgraced and his influence destroyed the way John envisioned, the health of his reputation wouldn't matter to her enemies. In that sense his leverage and the risk of him wielding it would remain intact. On the other hand, if that threat to his empire materialized it might remove Mycroft and therefore Mary as his priorities long enough to give Mary room to act. It was a long shot, but between the time pressure of her pregnancy and the perception that she wasn't in immediate danger of being revealed, Mary, who had been staying her hand against Sherlock because she thought he was working to defuse the threat to her, might decide to resume her campaign. That would be all to the good, because Sherlock was finding the chronic threat of pending destruction tiresome and he was increasingly eager for the final confrontation that would resolve it one way or the other.

It wouldn't do to mention that to John just yet, however, so instead he said, "If we can find someone to stand up to Magnussen, that person could very likely withstand any pressure Mycroft could exert, especially if it's someone he won't touch-or better yet can't touch."

"Any ideas?"

"Lady Smallwood," Sherlock said at once.


	10. Chapter 10

**Saturday, 27 December 2014**.

"Wait here," Sherlock told the cab driver, and he and John walked up the steps to the front door of Lady Smallwood's home in Lowndes Street, where Lady Smallwood herself answered the door. She didn't seem especially pleased to see them, but then she was in mourning.

"Lady Smallwood," Sherlock said sombrely as he shook her hand. "Thank you for seeing us on such short notice. This is my friend and colleague, Dr. John Watson."

"I'm very sorry for your loss," John said.

"Thank you, Dr. Watson," she said. "Come in, gentlemen. Sit down. What can I do for you?"

As often as John wished that Sherlock would be more 'human,' by which he always meant 'less emotionally detached,' the evidence of the last two days was that he should have been more careful about what he wished for. An overwrought Sherlock was not a pleasant sight. Now, while Sherlock's formal tone and bearing projected unexceptional propriety to Smallwood, they were certain proof to John that he was nervous.

"Lady Smallwood," Sherlock began. "Generally I don't ask my clients for help, but this is a unique situation and that is in fact why we're here. Considering my failure with your husband's case I realize that you would be perfectly justified in refusing to help us in any way. However, as this involves our mutual problem of Charles Magnussen, I hope you will hear me out."

She inclined her head to indicate that she was listening. Sherlock continued. "I have attempted several carefully calculated approaches to defeating Magnussen and one that was...improvised. None of those attempts interrupted his activities for as much as an afternoon. What I have not tried, and what I need your help with, is a more subtle approach to the problem. A psychological approach." Although she didn't answer her expression was at least civilly attentive, so he went on. "Magnussen likes to identify what he calls people's pressure points."

"Yes," she said, unable to keep the disgust from her voice. "I've heard his philosophy on that."

"He enjoys what he's doing. Blackmailing people. Torturing them. Everyone he's targeted knows that. The question is, why?"

"I'm sure I don't care what his motive is, but since you ask I'd say he's a sadist."

"He is. But why? _Why_ does he care so much about inflicting himself on people the way he does?"

She made a hopeless gesture. "Why?" she asked tiredly.

Sherlock looked at John: This was his hypothesis.

"Because," John said, "if people didn't live in constant fear of him exposing their secrets, they wouldn't think about him at all. He wouldn't be a blip on anyone's radar screen. For certain kinds of people that's unbearable. I think Magnussen is that sort of person."

"Interesting theory, Dr. Watson, but what difference does it make what his motive is?"

"It gives us a way to reach him," Sherlock said. "To damage him." He got up and started to pace. "Assume John's correct about his motive. If that's the case, then what's the worst possible thing that could happen to him?"

"I know the best thing is a bullet between his eyes. But I'm afraid I have no idea what the worst would be."

"Oblivion."

"Sorry?"

"Oblivion. Passing the rest of his life discredited and ignored. Dismissed as an impotent joke. Without leverage and without a shred of credibility. Forgotten."

"I'm afraid I don't follow."

"You know that Magnussen has a hold on dozens of politicians and other influential people."

"Yes, of course. He calls it 'ownership,'" she said with contempt.

"Did you know that all of the information he retains on those people is virtual?"

She stared at him. "Virtual."

"Yes. Since the day I began targeting Magnussen I assumed that the information he maintained was physical. Records, receipts, files, correspondence. The usual blackmailer's tool kit. It's not. He has nothing. No records, no files, digital or otherwise. Nothing except the information he retains in his head and the power of the press to smear his victims.

"You know more of Magnussen's victims than anyone but my brother. We need one person. Just one. Someone willing to accuse him publicly and loudly and who can withstand the pressure. Magnussen could sue for defamation, yes, but doing so would expose him formally and officially as having no proof of his claims. Either way, when it becomes common knowledge that he's got nothing, more victims will be willing to challenge him. More will be willing to step forward. Right now his leverage is perceived, but when people realize that it doesn't exist in fact, that he has no proof and can't produce any, all that's left is the court of public opinion. What was it he said to you, John?"

"'I don't have to prove it. I just have to print it.'"

"Yes. And as they say, two can play at that game."

"Interesting," Smallwood said. "But I perceive two flaws in your plan, Mr. Holmes."

"Oh?"

"First, many of the people Magnussen targets are in fact guilty of what he's threatening to expose. Virtually all of them, to take only the cases that I'm aware of, and that's a considerable number."

Sherlock waved this away. "But he can't prove it. In a court of law he'd be required to do so. 'Because I said so' isn't a valid legal defence, and common gossip-hearsay-is inadmissible. In any case he has an incentive to stay out of court: His victims would countersue and the truth about his leverage would come out."

"Second," she said, "not everything he threatens to reveal involves personal indiscretions. He has a great deal of information that would be damaging to the government and dangerous or fatal to many individuals-our allies and agents here and abroad-if he revealed it."

"Agreed. But the government lies all the time: to taxpayers, to its allies, to its enemies. You have the knowledge, the power, and the influence to create a veneer of credible deniability well before Magnussen could carry out his threats. You know what he knows-what that damaging information is. You can falsify records to protect the government's position, bribe or threaten politicians and functionaries to back up the stories, and generally make him look like a liar. The same techniques that governments around the world use to deceive each other every day are also used internally, and at least if you applied them in this case the end result would be freedom for his victims."

"Such cynicism, Mr. Holmes," she said with a frosty smile. "If you weren't correct I'd be offended."

For a while she sat quietly, turning over what he'd said, seeing a way to build that deniability. She knew it could be done because she'd done it before, many times and in many contexts. "I think," she said slowly, after several minutes had passed. "I think I know someone who might be willing to do what you ask. It will take more than just a phone call, though. Will you give me until tomorrow afternoon? Say by the end of the day, although I should think I'd have an answer for you before then."

"Until tomorrow," Sherlock said.


	11. Chapter 11

**Monday, 29 December 2014**

John was used to seeing the improbably-named Iphigenia Killick, the Countess of Ruffner, on television in the fashionable, expensive dresses she favoured when in public, but when he and Sherlock met her she was wearing faded bootcut jeans, white leather sneakers, and a pink cotton blouse with the hem untucked and the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, while her long, dark brown hair was held away from her face by an unadorned black velvet band. Tall and slim with an unstudied, gracefully athletic bearing and intelligent brown eyes, her good looks matched her famous charisma. Even without makeup she was better-looking in person than in any photo John had ever seen of her, and much less of an icon in her casual clothes than a real person. He liked her immediately.

The details of Lady Ruffner's life were easy enough to come by, as she was a wildly popular target of the tabloid press. Her reputation for genuine charm, insouciance, good humour, and unfailing kindness were legitimately won, but while these days she was an effortlessly proper yet accessible English lady, at one time her youthful behaviour had been such that when people applied the term 'accessible' it was as one of the more polite euphemisms available to describe her morals. Even as a young girl she drew the tabloids' attention as a hellion, but on reaching her teens she became a notorious source of salacious front-page headlines. Few notables helped the press sell as many newspapers as did 'Countess Iffy.' Even her nickname, coined by one of the tabloids when she was fourteen, reflected her indifferent reputation.

Now forty-five years old and happily married with two pretty, accomplished daughters in their late teens, she was beloved by millions across the globe, to say nothing of Britons themselves, who regarded her as a national treasure, the second coming of Princess Diana and a worthy successor to that tragic lady, and she kept herself busy promoting pet spay-and-neuter campaigns world-wide, as well as personally arranging for the re-purposing of retired racehorses.

Sherlock and John were shown in to the front room of Lady Ruffner's Boltons Place home, where she advanced with a bright smile to shake their hands. "Mr. Holmes. Dr. Watson. I'm so glad you've come," she said. "Won't you sit down? Can I get you something to drink? No? I'm sorry you had to come through the back way, but the paparazzi-well, you know how they are. They're an incredible nuisance, but without them our charity work wouldn't get half the publicity or funding that it does, so we have to take the good with the bad."

Sherlock made no reply to this, but John said, "Bit of a love-hate relationship with them?"

"More like a use-use relationship," she said with a smile. "They use me to sell their dirty rags-I think 'click bait' is the modern term-and I use them to bring attention to causes I think are important. In fact I hope to be using them again very soon. Well," she added, getting down to business, "my Aunt Angela-Lady Smallwood-contacted me about your visit with her, and not to keep you in suspense, but I believe I'm your man."

John blinked. "You're willing to help us with Charles Magnussen?"

"Willing and able," she said. "You seem surprised. That's why you've come, isn't it? I'll tell you what: Let me explain how I first met him; if you doubt my sincerity and commitment after that, you will please let me know what else I can do to convince you. Fair?"

"Fair," Sherlock said.

"Well," she began, "if you've not been living under a rock for the last twenty-five years you will know that titles and money notwithstanding, in my teens and early twenties I was not the sort of girl a boy brought home to his mother. In short, I was an idiot. Why I acted out isn't important; the fact is that I did. Oh, I knew _how_ to be discreet, but the truth was that the more shocking the effect I could have on people, the better I liked it. The boys I 'dated' certainly didn't bother with discretion. It was a feather in their caps, you know, to be able to say they'd slept with a peer and an heiress. Even the ones who didn't. There were far more of the latter than the former, but I have a bad reputation to uphold so you will please not mention that outside this room. Of course if the boys used me to build their undeserved reputations, I used them the same way.

"There was one boy, though, who I found absolutely fascinating because he wouldn't have anything to do with me. You know how that is."

Sherlock frowned; he had no idea what she was talking about. "No."

"I'll explain when you're older," John said.

"It made him a challenge," she replied, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I met him in an ethics and world politics class; we were both reading for the social and political science tripos. My parents insisted on it, but it wasn't what I wanted to pursue. One of the reasons behind my idiocy, really."

"Why, what did you want to read for?" John asked.

"The classical tripos," she replied at once. "Latin, Greek, linguistics, philology."

"You speak Latin?" John said, surprised out of his manners.

"Yes, fluently. As well as Greek," she said with a smile. "I was a slut, Dr. Watson, not stupid."

John turned red. "Sorry."

She laughed. "Oh, you are adorable. I haven't seen anyone blush like that in _ages_." She looked at Sherlock. "Does he do it often?"

"No," Sherlock said. "Just predictably."

"Well," she continued, "I might not be stupid, but because I disliked my studies I wasn't very focused, either, and when you add that to prostrating boredom I was coming uncomfortably close to failing my classes. On the other hand, this boy was acing his, so I asked him for tutoring help. I meant 'tutoring,'" she said, making air quotes with her fingers, "but he took it very literally. Absolutely proper gentleman, never dreamt of suggesting a quid pro quo arrangement, the way most young men would have done. Could not have been more impervious to the most obvious signals. Of course you're thinking well, perhaps he was gay, or perhaps he already had a girlfriend and was being faithful to her, or perhaps he just had a well-developed sense of propriety. Any of those things could have been true, I suppose, but...I'm not sure how it is with men," she said, looking at John, "but women know when a man is interested in them. You might not be able to say how you know, but you know. I think he agreed to help because it would look good on his CV, but I also think that after a time he felt...affection for me. Desire, even. That if he'd known me as something other than what the world thought I was, he might have been a little more...forward?"

While he was wholly indifferent to her title, wealth, and appearance, Sherlock wanted something from the countess now so he curbed his propensity for acerbity-but he wasn't interested in her dating history, either, and tried to move her along. "Lady Ruffner," he began.

"Get on with it?" she said with a smile.

"Essentially," he said.

"Sherlock," John warned.

"Well," she said, still smiling, "I thought you might find the background interesting. You can be the judge of that, of course. In any case, my lifestyle, as people call it, eventually caught up to me. I got pregnant. There was no question of learning who the father was; it could have been either of two candidates, but of course informing either of them would have meant the knowledge becoming public. My mother was born in Greece-in Thessaloniki-and she took me to the Greek islands on the pretext of visiting relatives. Even the paparazzi couldn't pursue the family yacht very successfully. Besides, they hadn't the slightest idea of the real reason for the trip. My daughter was born on board the ship and 'Gena Bonden' listed as the birth mother on the paperwork. Bonden was the surname of my mother's nanny," she added in an aside. "My mother's best friend, Lady Smallwood-Aunt Angela to my brothers and me-flew out, returned home with the baby, and oversaw her adoption by a good family. My mother and I remained in Greece for another month, just for appearances, and then we returned as well."

She sighed. "That was the beginning of the end of my 'wild oats' phase. About two months after I returned to school a man-I'd say gentleman, but that would be an odious lie-came to see me. He knew all about Gena Bonden's baby. Of course I said I had no idea what he was talking about, but he told me not to worry, that he wasn't after anything at all. Something about picking fruit before it's ripe. He just wanted to let me know that he knew."

"Charles Magnussen," Sherlock said.

"Yes." She twisted her wedding ring in the first sign of tension that she'd displayed. "I don't know if either of you has ever tried to keep a secret that important, but it's a very wearing thing. When you're twenty years old it's impossible. The only person I trusted enough to confide in was my tutor. He'd never tried to abuse his position and I knew that he felt affection for me, and I'm horribly ashamed to say that I took advantage of that. He looked into who this Magnussen person was and told me that he'd thought of a way to take his focus off of me and direct it onto himself. In my defence I'd only told him as a way of sharing the burden and the offer was his idea. On the other hand, I neither turned him down nor tried to dissuade him. In fact, I jumped at it." She looked from one to the other. "You don't have to tell me how contemptible that was."

Her candor and refusal to excuse her own behaviour raised her still higher in John's estimation. "What was his offer?"

"He pretended to be the father," Sherlock said, watching the countess carefully.

"Great minds think alike," she said with a smile.

John frowned. "Yeah, sorry, but for the non-great: How did that take the pressure off of you?"

"I'm rich, Dr. Watson," she said. "I'm famous. Popular. Etcetera. What I'm not is politically influential. But even back then my tutor was, and he's much more so now. Twenty-five years ago he was a far bigger prize for a blackmailer than I ever became."

"You were known to meet privately with this man," Sherlock said. "It would be the easiest thing in the world to make Magnussen believe that biology had taken place between you."

"That's exactly what he said, and it was. Magnussen believed it-I want to say implicitly, but that's not true. My tutor was very careful to create a convincing paper trail, I guess you'd call it, so whatever Magnussen did to verify paternity, including DNA testing, he got confirmation."

"An impressively thorough deception," Sherlock admitted. "Bordering on elegant."

"From a technical standpoint I suppose you're right," she said. "Morally, or perhaps I should say spiritually, it's been a disaster."

"How do you mean?" John asked.

"The day I met Charles Augustus Magnussen was the last day of my freedom, Dr. Watson. The knowledge that he could reveal me, my daughter, and my tutor has coloured my life ever since. It's sucked the pleasure out of all the things I should have been able to enjoy without restraint. My husband, my children. Everything has been coloured by fear of exposure by that man. Even my tutor's protection-the very fact that he had to offer it, the fact that I accepted, the fact that I allowed him to assume a burden like that. And it's been a very great burden to him. Lady Smallwood knows how he helped me, and she's told me how much more difficult it's made his position, always having to consider the influence of that toad. I can't bear it any more. There's nothing I'd rather do than finally stand up to Magnussen. I'm tired of despising myself for being afraid of him, and I'm tired of his shadow hanging over my family."

"Then help us," Sherlock said.

"I told you a moment ago that I have a use-use relationship with the press," she said. "I can't think of anything they'd rather bay about than the discovery of my 'love child,' can you?"

"You'd reveal the girl as your daughter?" Sherlock said, surprised.

"I want to get to know her, Mr. Holmes. I want to meet her, if she's willing. Angela's family has been friends with her mother for ages; that's how she arranged the adoption. I've followed her progress all these years, but we've never met. The three of them are meeting tonight and Angela will tell her at least part of the story, but even if she doesn't agree to meet me or to the publicity I know the press will go crazy even for an anonymous Countess Iffy baby."

"Tell me how you'd go about it," Sherlock said.

She shrugged. "It's simple, really. My people call a news network, offer them an exclusive interview with Countess Iffy, and within twenty-four hours they'll breathlessly announce that on New Year's Day they're going to air a live thirty-minute commercial-free broadcast of Countess Iffy's tell-all bombshell. A bombshell which will be viewed by millions around the world and which not coincidentally will include the tearful story of her persecution by the loathsome creep who's been casting a shadow over all her happiness." She smiled at them.

Sherlock grinned wolfishly in reply. "And of course the fact that you'll approach a rival news organization with that story won't hurt."

"I should think they'll donate multiple six-figure sums to a charity of my choosing out of sheer gratitude."

Her airy manner notwithstanding, John knew it would require an uncommon level of fortitude to actually go through with the plan successfully. Sherlock seemed to think the same. "It won't be quite that simple," he said, "but with your example and if you and Lady Smallwood can encourage a few others to come forward as well, it will make a good start."

"What about your tutor?" John asked. "Does he know about this? Has he agreed to it?"

"He doesn't know," she said, "and I'm not going to tell him. Nor am I going to reveal him to the press."

"Aren't you afraid that Magnussen will?" John asked.

"So much the better," Sherlock said. "He's not the real father, so any assertions of Magnussen's part can easily be disproved with a simple DNA test. Followed by another lawsuit. More ammunition with which to destroy Magnussen's credibility."

She shook her head. "I wouldn't count on his participation, Mr. Holmes."

"Why not? Is he an idiot or just a coward?"

"Well, you know him better than I do," she said.

"Why, who is he?" John asked.

"Mycroft Holmes."

They stared at her, stunned entirely, and Sherlock at least was rendered mute.

"Sorry," John said after an eternity. "What?"

"Mycroft Holmes."

"Mycroft," John said. "Mycroft- _his_ brother?" Pointed at Sherlock.

"Yes. He never told even you," Iffy said to Sherlock with a sad smile. "His own brother. You see what I mean? For twenty-five years he's protected me from that bully."

Vaguely Sherlock was aware of John looking anxiously at him, but there was no danger here. Mycroft: Brave, honourable, and caring, according to the countess, three adjectives that Sherlock would not have applied to his brother at gunpoint, but since university Mycroft had been her white knight, absorbing the blackmailer's pressure and his little brother's contempt because he couldn't tell someone else's secret.

More important, Mycroft had cared enough for this woman to knowingly compromise his life's work. _Affection. Desire, even_. Scorn was Sherlock's instinctive, ingrained response to this realization, as was an obscure sense of betrayal: _Caring is not an advantage_. How many times had Mycroft recited that incantation in Sherlock's hearing? 'Crap life advice' John always called it, but Sherlock the very little boy idolized his big brother and for a long time he swallowed wholesale everything Mycroft told him.

Underlying Sherlock's sense of the injustice of it all and fighting for primacy against it was a feeling of hopefulness, even elation, on his brother's behalf. The origin of that pleasurable emotion was a mystery to him and he didn't have time just then to examine it, so he set it aside for future consideration. What he was certain of now was Mycroft's original and still prime motive for obstructing his efforts to take down Magnussen. Better yet, he knew that this woman had more influence over his brother than even the blackmailer. Mycroft would not oppose her the way he'd opposed Sherlock, and in any case by the time he heard of it her offensive would be a _fait accompli_. Lady Ruffner had more influence over the world press and public opinion than Magnussen, his media empire notwithstanding, could ever dream of attaining. The thought _This is going to work_ flashed through Sherlock's brain.

"Lady Ruffner," he said, his face radiant with that confident, self-contained expression that John hadn't seen in months and didn't realize he missed, "do you have any photographs of your daughter?"

ooooo

They were silent throughout the cab ride to Baker Street. John accompanied Sherlock upstairs but kept his coat on; eventually he'd have to go home, although that was something he was reluctant to do. After just three days the deception, assuming that Mary was deceived, already wore sadly on him. Here he could be himself, without self-editing, without the edge of wariness, without artifice. It would have made him feel disloyal, if Mary hadn't already betrayed him.

Sherlock went at once to his fireplace chair, where he sat with his hands steepled under his nose in silent thought. There was every chance he'd remain like that for hours, and John was turning to go when Sherlock broke the silence.

"Magnussen made a mistake," he said.

"Besides admitting that he's a blackmailer without evidence?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"The allele responsible for detached earlobes is dominant, yes?"

The hell did that come from? "Uh...yes," John said. "So?"

"You must have noticed the countess's ear lobes."

"Sherlock, dammit-"

"They're attached. Her daughter: detached."

"Yeah?"

"For God's sake, John," Sherlock said with asperity, "the significance is literally right in front of you."

"Oh-" John said, looking at Sherlock's ears and finally understanding. "Yours are attached. Mycroft?"

"Attached. Our parents: attached. They're homozygous recessive for the trait."

"So..."

"So Magnussen's either not quite as observant as he thinks he is or doesn't know that the shape of a person's ear is at least partly determined by genetics. Twenty-five years ago he completely missed the significance of that fact and obviously never revisited it. He's spent this entire time thinking he's controlling Mycroft, but at least initially Mycroft went on the offensive and got control of him first."

"Keep your enemies close?"

"Exactly."

"Why'd you say 'initially'?" John asked.

"Well, things change over time, obviously. What Mycroft's got at risk now is a little more...complicated."

"You're what he's got at risk now."

"Hm. He's got a few new pieces on his game board. In addition to his little secret about the countess."

"Yeah," John said with a grin. "Your brother and Countess Iffy."

"There's no 'and,'" Sherlock said scornfully. "According to her he never even had the nerve to ask her for coffee."

"He had the nerve to do a lot more than that for her," John said. "He's had to take on a lot of extra strain over the years because of what Magnussen thinks he knows. It's sort of..."

"Pathetic? Yes, I agree."

"Yeah, I was going to say 'touching.'"

"A synonym for pathetic."

"He was afraid of being hurt, you tosser. Offering to intervene with Magnussen was a pretty oblique way of letting her know he was interested, but it was probably the safest route he could think of. He did what he could for her in the only way he was comfortable with. He was trying to avoid pain, just like everyone else does."

"And look how much he caused. That's where his caring and his feelings got him. He's a hypocrite. 'Caring is not an advantage.' He compromised his entire career out of _sentiment_."

"Are you angry because you listened to him then or because you don't listen to him any more?"

"I-" Sherlock began, then clapped his jaw shut and regarded John with narrowed eyes. John frequently kept him honest this way, but it was rarely a pleasant experience.

"Your brother's a human being," John continued, "and no matter how high his IQ is he can't do anything about that. It's a feature, not a bug. And you're being irrational."

"Me. _I'm_ irrational."

"Yeah. Mycroft, too. It's irrational not to follow the facts. I have that from an expert. You're both suspicious of emotions no matter where they come from, even when they're based on the evidence. Even when they're legitimate. Even when they're the kinds of emotions you can trust."

Sherlock stared at him.

"What?" John said finally.

"My father said something similar once, years ago."

"Well, there you are," John said, pleased.

"Yes," Sherlock replied. "He was wrong, too."


	12. Chapter 12

**Thursday, 1 January 2015**

As a means of first turning the public's attention toward and then its sentiment firmly against Charles Magnussen, Lady Ruffner's internationally-televised exclusive tell-all interview succeeded beyond anything Sherlock imagined, and certainly beyond anything he and John had hoped.

Bored and depressed by endless gloomy economic forecasts and grim stories of terrorism, war, and refugees, the public seized upon the story with the savage avidity of piranhas. Poll after poll registered the public's outrage and its hatred for the man who had so cruelly persecuted the beloved countess. The segment of the press not controlled by Magnussen, and it was substantial, gleefully ran hour upon hour of programming denouncing him and lionizing his victim, to say nothing of print editorials and news stories strongly hinting at unspecified improprieties, if not outright criminality, associated with Magnussen's various enterprises.

The day after the news broke, Magnussen's flagship publication ran a front-page story quoting anonymous 'former employees' of the Ruffner household to the effect that so far from putting her licentious past behind her, Lady Ruffner's at-home behaviour was if anything more debauched than ever; that she frequently hosted dozens of disreputable individuals at modern orgies; and that she was well on the way to corrupting the morals of not only her daughters but her husband and the entire household staff, as well.

The allegations were poorly received by consumers of news, and as Magnussen's opening gambit they proved to be a near-fatal self-inflicted wound. UKIP immediately proposed new limits on the ability of foreigners to own businesses in the UK. Anonymous crashed the CMNews servers, making publication impossible for three days straight, and stole and vowed to sell sensitive personnel data unless Magnussen resigned his chairmanship by the end of the month. Even without the hackers' contributions, worldwide circulation of the company's print editions dropped precipitously within twenty-four hours and showed no signs of recovering, while the demand for print and online subscription cancellations brought down the company phone and email systems. CMNews's stock price dropped thirty-two percent overnight. The following Tuesday six more prominent blackmail victims, encouraged secretly by Lady Smallwood, filed suit against Magnussen, CMNews, and his subsidiary companies, and while the lawsuits stood only a faint chance of success in court, they admirably served their true purpose of drawing still more attention to the predations of Charles Augustus Magnussen.

On the Wednesday following the countess's interview, Drudge broke the story that Magnussen's legal team was not only strongly urging him to settle the lawsuits out of hand-as being less ruinous than either defending against them or countersuing the plaintiffs-but was making preliminary motions to file for bankruptcy due to the calamitous decline in shareholder value. The next morning-a week after the countess's interview-the company's stock plunged another forty-two percent on the international exchanges and showed no signs of arresting its free-fall, while seven more blackmail victims joined the legal fray.

Later that same afternoon the prime minister stood framed in Number Ten's iconic doorway and issued a statement throwing moral support behind the victims, after which he announced that he, too, had been pressured by Magnussen, and produced the visitors' logs to prove it.

Throughout it all Lady Ruffner readily made herself available to both the paparazzi and more legitimate news outlets, and with the skill of long practice kept herself in the headlines and kept public indignation at a high pitch.

ooooo

"Look at this," John said one evening when he'd stopped by Baker Street after work. "Iffy's holding another press conference tomorrow afternoon. She's finally going to reveal the identity of her daughter."

From his supine position on the sofa Sherlock merely grunted in reply.

"Says her husband and other two daughters will be there, too. Want me to call the TV people and tell them Uncle Sherl's available?"

"What was that thing you said the other day?" Sherlock asked.

"When?"

"When I laughed at your bicycle helmet."

"'Bite me'?"

"Yes," Sherlock said blandly. "Do that."

John laughed. "She really is a natural at this," he said admiringly. "And people love it when the scullery maid turns out to have been the duke's daughter all along."

"People are idiots," Sherlock groused. "The girl was raised in a household with a net worth half again as high as the Ruffners'."

"Yeah, but not by a countess."

"My point exactly. Idiots."


	13. Chapter 13

**Friday, 9 January 2015.**

Sherlock looked up from his computer when he heard the front door slam with more than the usual force, and an instant later the alcove door received the same treatment. Mrs. Hudson, who in any case didn't slam doors, hadn't gone out. Clients rang first, after which they likewise failed to slam the doors. The stairs were taken two at a time, but not at a run: John was on his way up and from the sound of it he wasn't happy.

"What's happened?" Sherlock asked when John reached the landing and stood there glaring.

"Not a thing. Except for the part where I just spent the last two hours at Thames House getting sweated by MI5."

"Explain."

"They picked me up at the damned _clinic_ , Sherlock," John said loudly. "I was with a patient. It was embarrassing as hell."

"What did they want?"

"They wanted to know if I owned a handgun. Had one in an evidence bag. Sat me down in one of their little interrogation rooms and asked if I'd seen it before."

"And had you?"

"How the hell should I know?" John cried. "It was a nine millimetre Browning, but I didn't write my name on it. They all look alike, you know, and without comparing the serial number there's no way to tell."

"The army would know the serial number of the gun it issued you. Therefore either MI5 didn't bother to ask them or it wasn't really your gun, or it was your gun and they were trying to get you to incriminate yourself."

"Yeah," John said impatiently, "I figured that out."

"What did you tell them?"

"Nothing. Not a damned thing. Said if they weren't arresting me then I had nothing to say, and if they were arresting me I definitely had nothing to say. Talk to my lawyer. You know."

"Good."

"Yeah, well, two hours out of my life and thirty-two threats to my licence to practise later, the boss comes in and says there's been a big mix-up, it's all good, and I'm free to go. Oh, and did I want a ride back to work? What the hell, Sherlock? No one knows I own that gun except you and Mycroft."

"Magnussen saw it," Sherlock said thoughtfully, "but he doesn't know which of us it belongs to, and besides, phoning MI5's not really his style. Mycroft's security detail saw it, too, but he has ways of ensuring their silence. You're sure it was a Browning, same model as yours?"

"Positive."

"It's unlikely that MI5 would try to link a handgun to you and just luck into using a Browning. It's not that common a manufacturer. More likely they had the information fed to them, and it probably really was your gun."

"Well, if it's not Magnussen and not the security detail, the only other person who knows it's my gun is Mycroft. So this is his crap?"

Sherlock answered with another question. "Did they fingerprint you?"

"No. Why?"

"If they didn't bother to get your prints it's because the gun's been wiped and they had nothing to match. Assuming it really was your gun, and assuming that Mycroft was using you to send a message to me without intending you to really end up in prison, he'd have wiped the gun first."

"I knew it," John growled, turning to go. "This is going to end now."

"John, wait."

"Forget it, Sherlock. Do _not_ try to talk me out of this."

"Talk you out of it? I want to watch."

Obscurely, John was looking forward to the confrontation. The strain of carrying on a deception with no discernible end date was fraying his temper, and that strain was magnified by his daily proximity to Mary, a constant reminder of what he'd lost-or more accurately was deceived into thinking that he had. So he was ready to blow off a little steam in any case, and his conviction that Mycroft's outsized influence on Sherlock was largely to blame for making Sherlock desperate enough to attempt murder made Mycroft an appealing target on which to work out.

Mycroft looked up from his work when they entered, unannounced and unwelcome. Behind the desk with a file in her hands stood Anthea, and she glanced at her boss with a tacit inquiry: Should she have them put out? But he gave a dismissive flick of his hand and she glided away.

John was already leaning over the desk, both hands gripping the edge as though it was the only thing preventing him from reaching across and throttling Mycroft. Sherlock posted himself a step behind John and to his left. If John swung at his brother he'd most likely do it left-handed.

"Do come in," Mycroft said sarcastically, eyeing them both coldly.

"You think that's clever, do you?" John began. "Sending your goons after me at work? Hm? Embarrassing me in front of my patients? Showing me my licence is only as safe as you decide it is?"

"Dr. Watson," Mycroft said. "If you'd be so kind as to explain yourself. Until then I'm afraid I have no-"

"Bullshit!" John shouted, punching the desk for emphasis and making the phone handset rattle in its cradle. "You think you're untouchable? Sitting here manipulating people like pieces on your personal chessboard? All your little pawns, afraid of you? Well let me tell you something, you insufferable prick: I. Am not. Afraid. Of _you_. The people you work for think you're invincible. Everyone in this room knows you're not."

Sherlock stood silently, closely watching them both. His brother was about to get into it with John and Sherlock knew that was a bad idea. "Mycroft," he warned.

Mycroft didn't give a flicker to show that he heard. He didn't shout back. After all, the desk was between them and he couldn't conceive of John climbing over it after him. And John wasn't the only one in the room with a grudge. "I believe Charles Magnussen explained to you my brother's pressure point?" he said, still with his habitual urbanity. "There's so little I can really do to shape his behaviour, and reverse psychology only goes so far."

"I know why you did it, you arsehole," John growled.

"Do you? Because if you think I did it to express my extreme outrage over you two idiots prying into the intensely private business of Lady Ruffner, think again. You have no idea what you're playing at with Magnussen-"

"I don't give a damn!"

" _Start!_ " Mycroft shouted, suddenly sitting up and leaning forward. If he startled John it didn't show: John didn't react except to lean farther forward, and he was near to baring his teeth. " _Start_ giving a damn, Dr. Watson, because you may not be afraid of me, but I most certainly am not afraid of you, and if I give the word MI5 will match that gun to you and you will spend the next seven to ten years in a prison cell being unafraid of me at your leisure. I have a nation to protect and neither you nor my dear little brother is going to interfere with that. Making people bleed isn't the only way to defend a country, _Doctor_."

"You're a patriot, now," John said bitterly. "The future of England depends on you caving to Magnussen, does it? Is that how the cleverest man in the hemisphere has arranged things? Because that doesn't look like genius-level planning to me."

" _Sherlock_ can't recognize 'genius-level planning' when he sees it," Mycroft replied scornfully. "Do you really think there's any hope for you?"

"Let me tell you what I recognize," John said. "I recognize that you're protecting Magnussen instead of helping us stop him. I recognize that you're doing that even though you know how far it drove _him_ to go." Pointed at Sherlock. "I recognize that you'd rather watch your brother swing for murder than do anything about the man who's driving him to it!"

" _You're_ the man who's driving him to it," Mycroft snarled. "Let's play 'imagine,' shall we, Doctor? Let's imagine that you didn't fall for and marry a serial-killing sociopath with enemies from here to Beijing who has drawn you into the line of the retaliatory fire that's waiting for her. Let us then speculate on just how far my brother would be willing to go to destroy Charles Magnussen. If it weren't for you-"

"It _is_ for him," Sherlock interrupted, breaking his silence, and Mycroft glanced at him. John did not: He never took his eyes off Mycroft. "This is your one warning, _brother dear_ : You will leave John out of your machinations or tomorrow's news cycle will feature my interview explaining your 'favor' to the countess as nothing more than a cynical political move to advance your career. That should effectively wipe out the residual sentiment she still feels for you, don't you think?"

Mycroft knew perfectly well what he was going to reveal by not daring his brother to do it, but...God help him: Would he ever stop acting irrationally over that woman? He put his hands up in an 'I concede' gesture. "Very well. Dr. Watson: Consider yourself out of play."

"Consider yourself lucky," John snapped, and stalked out.

Mycroft turned his anger on his brother. "Well, now you know. Is that why you came? To get confirmation?"

"I came to stop him damaging you."

"How familial," Mycroft sneered.

"Oh, it wasn't for your sake," Sherlock said. "It was for his." And as he paused at the door, "Family is who earns it, Mycroft."


	14. Chapter 14

**Monday, 12 January 2015**

No one was ever able to adequately explain to the public's satisfaction how the broadcast was possible. Fortunately for those charged with explaining such things, an answer was not required: Had it not been for that same public's notoriously short attention span and the shocking news that broke just an hour later that same morning, the strange two-second video loop which suddenly appeared on every closed-circuit monitor and public television screen in the city might have generated very much more excitement than it did, breeding conspiracy theories, providing welcome material with which to fill cable news programmes, and launching breathless water cooler gossip in offices city-wide.

In the circumstances, however, with the press still in full cry about the disgraceful treatment of the beloved Countess Iffy and by a foreigner at that, the broadcast and its implications went effectively unnoticed and almost entirely unremarked upon, meriting little more than a single column inch in the technology pages of three smaller newspapers.

ooooo

The morning news programme on the living room television provided John with some vague background noise as he packed his lunch for work, but by no means was he actually listening to it because his thoughts were entirely taken up with Mary, still asleep in the second bedroom. By mutual agreement they'd been sleeping apart since his return. It was she who tentatively suggested it; the physical effects of the pregnancy had driven all thoughts of intimacy from her mind, she said, although in every other way she was as affectionate as ever and seemed pleased to have him back. John acted his part-successfully, he believed; the disappointment he expressed over the sleeping arrangements was false, but the reason he gave for agreeing with her suggestion-the desire to take things slowly-was real enough. _A_ truth. And then her proposal had the advantage of relieving his mind about the baby.

He didn't try to snoop through her room. If he'd not seen first-hand that it was possible for a human being to know when someone had opened his sock drawer he might have tried it, but while he didn't suspect her of Holmes-level abilities he wasn't taking any chances, either, so he assiduously avoided trespassing. Still, he no longer trusted her, and a woman attempting to fake a pregnancy five months along would act exactly the way she was acting.

When she accompanied four nurses from work to a New Year's Eve celebration, therefore, he sat down with her laptop. He'd never pawed through anyone else's computer in his life and he was not proud of doing it now, but he had to _know_. Her web history went back just a week and told him nothing, but in the trash folder of her email he found an order confirmation from a website called . Using his own computer to research the merchant he discovered that it was a company selling what it called 'realistic baby bumps' made of silicone or foam, according to the needs and budget of the buyer.

While the discovery would have grieved him to the heart if he'd made it three months earlier, now it merely brought intense shame and confusion, because his first reaction was neither surprise nor distress but relief. For three months no thought of his child had been unaccompanied by the torment of trying to imagine co-parenting with a murderer. Complicated, awkward, confusing, difficult...No, the word that kept coming to John's mind to describe that scenario was _tragic_.

Now his child, like the woman he married, belonged not to the past but to a reality dependent upon his ignorance and Mary's skill in maintaining it. He remembered wondering whether she'd ever been pregnant at all; he wondered it again that holiday eve; and he'd been wondering it ever since, including now, as he spread mustard on a slice of wheat bread and the television intruded itself into his notice again. The audio kept repeating itself as though it was on a loop- _Did you miss me?-_ in a ridiculous high-pitched voice, and he realized that it had been doing so these last few minutes. Scowling, he strode into the sitting room to shut it off-and then froze, incredulous.

"Mary!" he shouted. " _Mary!_ "

A moment later she hurried out, clutching her robe about her and looking cross. "What are you-" and then she stopped and stared as well.

On the screen-on every channel John selected-was a marionette image of James Moriarty with an idiot grin superimposed, chattering over and over, ' _Did you miss me?_ '

Without taking his eyes from the screen John groped for his phone and dialed.

"John?" Sherlock's sleep-fogged voice.

"Turn on the telly," John said.

ooooo

Sherlock stared at the screen. _Did you miss me? Did you miss me?_ Moriarty was dead by his own hand, his brains atomized on the Barts rooftop. Mycroft's people collected the corpse and confirmed his identity via DNA beyond the least doubt, although Sherlock could have saved them the trouble: Not all the blood he'd washed off himself that day had been applied cold by his homeless squadron. So if not Moriarty, then-

His phone rang again and he answered distractedly, mechanically, only remembering at the last second to mute the TV.

"I got news," Lestrade said breathlessly.

"Already heard," Sherlock said.

"How?" Lestrade asked, baffled. "I just found out myself."

"John called."

"How the hell did John find out?"

"He owns a television," Sherlock snapped.

"But we haven't released the information to the media," Lestrade said. "The coroner's not even on site yet."

That got Sherlock's attention. "What are you talking about?"

"Charles Magnussen," Lestrade said. "He's dead."

ooooo

"Thanks, Jimmy," Lestrade said to the uniformed cop who showed Sherlock and John up to the office.

Flanked by John, Sherlock strode in, glanced at the door jamb, the open door itself, and the hardware (no signs of forcing), then swept his gaze over the room: A bare, sparsely-furnished office, entirely utilitarian, without a single personal effect to distinguish it or hint at the personality of its owner. Grey and sterile-although to Sherlock that was a fitting enough symbol of its owner's degenerate soul.

To the right of the doorway near the floor-to-ceiling windows that spanned the room was a frosted glass and steel desk facing away from the expansive view. Before the desk stood two chrome and leather visitors' chairs.

Magnussen was face-down on the floor behind the desk as though he'd started to get up but didn't make it. His feet were crossed at the ankles and his left arm was bent awkwardly under his body, while his right was stretched down along his side, palm up, and a pen that he'd apparently been clutching lay where it fell, a few inches away. Nothing about the scene suggested a struggle or a protracted death. In fact, the first impression of both John and Sherlock was that Magnussen was stricken suddenly and collapsed dead almost at once.

"Thanks for coming," Lestrade said to them. "Any problems getting in?"

John shrugged. "No. Why?"

"The press. Just thought by now they'd be pretty thick on the ground. Mob scene, and all that."

"There were a few downstairs," John said.

"Not very many?"

"Handful. They were asking everyone who goes in and out of the building who died."

"Christ," Lestrade groaned. "When they figure it out all hell's gonna break loose. You guys been watching the news, with that blackmail stuff? Lady Ruffner, and all that?"

"Hard to miss," John said, speaking somewhat at random: Something about the nature of the scene bothered him. Other than the body on the floor there was nothing unusual about the office: No signs of violence and therefore no reason for Sherlock and him to be there. "You're thinking he was murdered?" he asked, a little sceptically.

"Not sure," Lestrade said. "I hope to God he wasn't, though. Must be the most hated man in the hemisphere, now that everyone knows about him and the countess. The suspect list wouldn't have an end to it, would it? Still. Coroner's running late and we need to wait on his preliminary eval, but no, it doesn't look like murder."

"Then why-?" John asked.

"Fishing," Sherlock said.

"Sorry?"

"He suspects me. Possibly you. Fishing."

John gaped at him, then glared at Lestrade, across whose face a guilty expression fleeted.

"No, I-" Lestrade began.

"Oh, that's just-I don't believe this," John cried angrily.

"It makes perfect sense, John," Sherlock said serenely. "Except for...what's that called? Oh, yes: The 'I didn't do it' part."

"Can you prove that?"

"He doesn't have to," John cried. "You have to prove that he did, and you can't."

"John," Sherlock said.

"Dammit, if you think he's guilty then arrest him. In fact, yeah, I'll tell you what. If you think he's guilty then arrest me, too, because I've got as much motive as he does."

"John," Sherlock warned again.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Lestrade asked, suspicious now.

Sherlock sighed as though it couldn't be more obvious. "He means that if you think Magnussen shot me, and if you think that's a motive for me to kill him, then he's got just as much motive for revenge as I do."

"Yeah?" Lestrade said. "That what you meant?"

John glared at him. "Yeah. It's what I meant."

"I have to eliminate him as a suspect, John," Lestrade said, unhappy to be the target of his outrage.

" _Eliminate_ him," John repeated. "Jesus, Greg. After everything he's done for you-"

"Irrelevant," Sherlock said, and looked at Lestrade. "Isn't it?"

"Yeah," Lestrade agreed, still very unhappy. "Look, guys: You haven't exactly been forthcoming about who pulled the trigger that night."

"He nearly died!" John shouted. "You know damned well trauma victims don't have perfect recall. If he says he can't remember, he can't remember. Why is that so hard to believe?"

"It's not," Lestrade admitted. "All I'm saying is he never ID'd who shot him, and it happened in these offices. There aren't that many people who have access to the place at that time of night. Magnussen's a pretty good candidate for the shooter."

"Yeah, except for the part where you have zero motive for him wanting Sherlock dead."

"But a pretty good one for Sherlock wanting Magnussen dead, if Magnussen's who shot him."

"Dammit, Greg, if he did this we wouldn't be standing over a body talking about it. Magnussen would be gone like he never existed."

Sherlock smiled. "Remind me not to call you as a character witness, John."

"You know what I mean."

Lestrade wasn't proud of himself, but he couldn't let his friendship for these two stop him doing his job, either. Sherlock was the most dangerous and capable man he'd ever known and John wasn't too far behind. If Sherlock wanted someone dead that person would be dead, and if anyone could commit the perfect crime and get away with it, it was Sherlock Holmes. And yet, John had a point. "Yeah, look, I'm sorry," he said, hands up, palms out in surrender.

John snorted derisively and crossed his arms. For his part Sherlock appeared wholly unmoved. If he was concerned about Lestrade's opinion he did a good job hiding it.

Lestrade waved at the body and stepped aside. "It's all yours," he said. "If this is a crime scene you're more likely than anyone to see it."

"True," Sherlock said, then pulled on a pair of exam gloves while John continued to bristle, not mollified in the least.

Trying to get back into their good graces Lestrade said to John, with forced lightness, "Guy's reputation for ice was worse than Sherlock's, and I believe it. Anyone else would have arranged the furniture to take advantage of that view, but there he sat with his back to the window."

Sherlock scowled: The purpose of the furniture arrangement was obvious to him, but he wasn't in the mood to explain the obvious.

John, however, was most definitely in the mood. "It was to get an advantage over whoever he was meeting with," he said impatiently. "Sitting so the light hit the face of whoever's in those chairs, while his own face was in shadow. Obviously."

Sherlock didn't look up from his examination of the body but he couldn't help smiling in appreciation, either. Lestrade looked away, abashed, and John stonily watched as Sherlock went over the scene.

His expression of intense, focused interest was the same one he wore at every crime scene, but John was morally certain that Sherlock was not only profoundly satisfied that the man was dead but that he believed the death was an unnatural one. John himself thought that considering the timing the whole thing was just a little coincidental.

Closer examination of the body confirmed Sherlock's first impression of a non-violent death, which was not to say that he could rule out murder. Any number of poisons could produce this outcome, but that determination would have to wait on toxicology, assuming it was something tested for in a routine tox screen. On his hands and knees he carefully sniffed the pen but didn't touch it, examined it with the glass, then sniffed the corpse's mouth and nose. Nothing. After completing the rest of his examination, during which he paid particular attention to Magnussen's hands and feet, he stood and turned to the desk itself, opening each of the three drawers in turn.

The drawers contained little other than a few standard office supplies like paperclips and three more pens of the same expensive sort as that next to the body. A hundred and eighty pounds for the cheapest of them. Four fountain pen refill cartridges in the drawer tray. On the otherwise bare desk itself stood a plain white ceramic coffee mug full of room temperature black coffee and two stacks of papers that Magnussen was clearly in the act of working on when he died. Some were signed, while others awaited a signature they would never receive. The signature on the topmost document started off normally but then wavered, proof that Magnussen was stricken while signing.

John took his turn examining the body as well as he could without moving it, which he wouldn't do in the absence of permission from the coroner, but there were no obvious signs of blood or physical injury. "Could be anything at this point," he admitted, standing and peeling off his gloves. "Heart attack, stroke...Nothing jumps out, though. Time of death...I'd say no more than three hours ago. Some time between now and six a.m."

"Tending toward natural causes, myself," Lestrade admitted. "Guy must have been under a lot of stress with all the blackmail accusations, lawsuits, press attention. News last night said the board of directors met yesterday afternoon about trying to force him out to salvage what was left of the stock price. Besides, if it was suicide he wouldn't have sat himself at his desk like that, would he? And then got up like he was about to walk away?"

Sherlock ignored the theorizing. "Have you reviewed the office security footage for that time period?"

"Not yet," Lestrade said, "but-"

"Do it. It's digital, not analog, so get your computer people on it: Have it examined forensically for tampering and do it quickly. I want to know who came and went, and when."

"Yeah, I said 'not yet,'" Lestrade replied irritably, "not that we weren't going to get to it."

"I want to know the results as soon as you have them," Sherlock said as though he hadn't spoken. "Who found him?"

"His PA," Lestrade said, and glanced at his notes.

"Janine Hawkins," Sherlock said, before Lestrade could access the name.

"The girl who was maid of honor at your wedding, yeah?" Lestrade said to John.

"What did she say?" Sherlock asked.

Lestrade read from the notes. "Uh, came in this morning at the usual time...made coffee...brought some up, and found him like that. Says she ran back down to the reception area and called emergency services straight away. Surveillance video of the car park confirms that she left last night and returned this morning just when she said she did."

"I want to talk to her. Is she still here?"

"Yeah, she's in the conference room down the hall," Lestrade said. "McAffree," he said to one of the uniformed cops. "Take Mr. Holmes to see Miss Hawkins. And Sherlock," he added, "go easy on her, yeah? Not everyone gets off on finding a body first thing in the morning."

"I'll keep it in mind," Sherlock said dryly.

Janine greeted him with a bright smile. "Look at you, all recovered," she said.

"All recovered," he lied.

She turned the beaming smile on John. "You've been keeping after him, haven't you, Dr. Watson? Making sure he takes his nice narcotics on schedule?"

"Sure," he said. "What about you? You okay?"

"Never better."

"You were going to retire. Keep bees," Sherlock said.

"All in good time," she said. "Though the timetable for that might have moved up a bit today."

"Not too broken up about your boss's death, then?" John said.

"Would you be?" she countered. "Is anyone?"

"Tell me what happened," Sherlock said.

She shrugged. "Walked in just like any other day," she said. "Brought the coffee up and found him face down on the floor."

"That's it?"

"What else?"

"You were in charge of office security, of access," he said.

"Which you took complete advantage of," she said with a look of mock reproach, "but I wasn't his bouncer twenty-four hours a day. What he did and who he allowed in while I wasn't here...Well, that's his problem now, isn't it? Anyway, that good-looking policeman said something about a heart attack. But you suspect 'foul play,' don't you?" she asked with a smile. "I mean, you know what they say."

"Who?"

"People."

"No."

"When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

ooooo

As they exited the lobby and stopped to hail a cab John couldn't repress a grin. As far as he could tell this eliminated all the danger from Mary's vengeance-seeking enemies. It would be different if the body had shown signs of torture, the suggestion that someone extracted information from Magnussen before he died, but he'd clearly been struck down very suddenly.

"Well?" he said as they waited on the pavement. "You think he was murdered, don't you."

"Of course he was murdered."

"How do you know?"

"Because I don't believe in coincidence. Have you seen the stock price of CMNews lately? It's down eighty-seven percent from its price the day before Lady Ruffner's announcement. Just two weeks, and billions of pounds of shareholder value have been wiped out of existence. If this little crisis went on much longer who knows how low the price might have gone."

"So you think someone was cutting his losses?"

"Yes. Magnussen went from being the company's greatest asset to its greatest liability in just under two weeks. Those documents on the desk? They were no-confidence statements from the board of directors, each written and signed by the individual board members."

"So...he was resigning?"

"Not at all," Sherlock said. "His signature merely indicated his receipt of them. You were right about him. He was going to hang on to his power until the very end. Until it killed him, in fact. Even if it meant destroying the company completely, he wasn't going without a fight."

"Then anyone with a share of stock had a motive," John said, somewhat dismayed.

"Theoretically, yes," Sherlock said, "but the killer also needed opportunity. That narrows the field considerably. Primarily to the board members who met with him yesterday and people with access to the office."

"Okay...So you're down to...how many board members?"

"Eight."

"Eight prime suspects."

"Lord Cranston is the majority shareholder," Sherlock noted. "If culpability were directly proportional to financial stake he'd be the prime suspect."

"If. You don't think he is, do you?"

"Did you notice anything strange about that office?" Sherlock asked.

"Besides the dead guy?" John said. "No. It looked completely normal. Nothing out of place-not that there's much in there other than the furniture. Is that the strange part? Like the dog that didn't bark?"

Sherlock smiled. "Not this time. There was a mug of coffee on the desk."

"Yeah? Janine said she took it up to him. So?"

"So a woman walks in to her boss's office expecting to find him alive and well and instead finds him dead on the floor. For most people that would be followed by coffee spillage, at a minimum, if not the wholesale dropping of the mug on the floor. Screaming, running away. The usual. But the coffee was sitting on the desk without a drop astray. As though she'd not even seen the dead man on the floor."

"Maybe she didn't. Maybe she, I don't know, walked in while he was out of the room for a second."

"That's not what she said."

"People lie."

"Such cynicism, John. Well, you might be right."

John frowned. "Hang on," he said. "Magnussen was clearly visible from the doorway."

Sherlock smiled. "He was, wasn't he?"

"So she saw him dead, walked in, and put the coffee on the desk anyway?"

"Without spilling a drop. It argues at a minimum for nerves of steel, wouldn't you say?"

"Well, she probably hated the guy, but it doesn't follow that she killed him."

"No. It doesn't."

"But?"

Sherlock shook his head. "No 'but.' It was just an observation."

"Liar."

"Yes, and speaking of lying." He looked significantly at John.

"What?"

"For such a rubbish actor you were very convincing with the honest outrage."

"I wasn't acting, dammit," John said, annoyed.

"Well, it was either that or a very short memory."

John sighed. "I haven't forgotten anything, Sherlock, but there's a big difference between...between _what happened_ and elaborately calculating and planning a murder."

"And you don't think I'm capable of that?"

"Oh, I _know_ you're capable of elaborate calculation and planning. I also know that if you did plan to murder someone you'd do exactly what I told Lestrade, and make sure that no one ever found the body. That's not a damned compliment," he added irritably, when Sherlock looked pleased.

A cab swung to the kerb and they climbed inside. "Baker Street, please," John said, and then to Sherlock, "I've got a question."

"Yes?"

"If Lestrade was fishing like you said then that means Magnussen kept up his end of his deal with Mycroft, right? Never told anyone about-about that night."

"It would seem so," Sherlock said. "No doubt Mycroft bought his silence."

"That must have cost him a fortune in favours."

"A coward dies a thousand deaths," Sherlock replied contemptuously.

ooooo

'No evidence of tampering.' That was the preliminary verdict of Scotland Yard's digital technology experts, but MI5 would be reviewing the footage, as well, Lestrade told Sherlock a few hours later. Sherlock disconnected the call with a smile of satisfaction. The absence of tampering confirmed something very specific: The killer didn't need to be physically present for the murder.

"This is coming together nicely, John," he said with some complacency.

But John didn't answer and Sherlock frowned, glanced about, then abruptly remembered: John took the cab on to work nearly six hours ago. Sherlock sighed, but perked up again almost immediately. According to Lestrade, Magnussen's autopsy was planned for later that afternoon, moved to the top of the schedule due to the high-profile nature of the case and the deceased's involvement with the even higher-profile countess.

ooooo

Molly Hooper hiked her tote back into position over her left shoulder and pushed through the locker room door. She was a bit out of breath, having been delayed by the Tube drivers' slow-down, because while she left home an hour earlier than usual to compensate they very nearly succeeded in making her late anyway. Now she only just had time to change.

"Molly."

She whipped round, but even as her body startled at the sound of her name her brain recognized with the old thrill that sonorous voice. He was standing in shadow to the right of the doorway, tall and solemn.

"Sherlock!" she gasped. "What are you-" She was about to ask, 'What are you doing here?' but the answer was obvious: He was waiting for her. "What-what's going on?"

"I'm going to impose on you again," he said, stepping toward her.

His eyes met hers, his full focus was on her, and she could feel herself blushing. He was always so...so _intense_. As thrilling as it had been to shelter him overnight after his staged suicide, it was also a relief when he finally left. How John tolerated the intensity day in and day out she couldn't imagine. "Oh, yes?" she said, flustered. "It's no trouble. Well, whatever it is, I'm sure...No imposition. What do you need?"

"Charles Magnussen," he said.

"That newspaper guy? The one who was blackmailing the countess? The news said he died this morning."

"I need tissue samples. Brain, heart, kidney, and liver, ideally."

She hesitated: Sherlock was nearly killed in Magnussen's offices. He claimed to have no memory of who shot him, but what if it was Magnussen? If he wanted to extract his own sort of justice, wouldn't that explain his failure to identify the shooter to the police? Had he been cleared as a suspect?

"I didn't kill him," he said, in that uncannily prescient way of his.

"What?" Alarm. "No, I didn't-"

"It's the obvious assumption," he assured her. "Lestrade made it, as well. As John pointed out to him, however, if I plotted a murder I wouldn't leave a body to examine."

That didn't make her feel any better. "John said that?"

"He has a very touching confidence in my skills."

"Well," Molly said, trying to escape the image of him disposing of a body, "I don't know who's doing the cut. But I can find out," she added quickly.

"I can't ask this of anyone else," Sherlock said. "It has to be you."

God, he always did that, and it always worked. It was going to work now, too. It had to be her because she was the only one in the building with a hopeless case for him. Her expression hardened a bit. "And this is official, then? You're helping the police?"

"I'm not asking for the police. I'm asking for John."

"For John?"

"I can't tell you why," he said. "Not now. Probably not ever. But it could mean his life."

He left the rest of his meaning unspoken: He would get his answers with or without her help and regardless of what it cost him. She searched the impassive face that gave nothing away, and she knew that if John's safety was involved nothing would stop him. Not lab procedure, not her, not the police, not a bullet. For perhaps the thousandth time she wondered what it would be like to be loved as profoundly as Sherlock loved John Watson.

"Of course I'll help," she said.

ooooo

John tossed his clinic coat into the hamper and turned his phone back on, and as he reached into his locker for his bike helmet the text alert sounded. _Barts. Bring food_. - _SH_ The bit about the food was their new code for 'Keep Mary out of it' and it was with some relief that he turned to her and said, "Sherlock. Needs me to look at something at Barts."

"Did he say what?"

He shook his head and held out the phone, showing her the text. Nothing to hide. "I'd think there was something wrong if he did. He's working on the Magnussen thing, though. Might be about that." _A_ truth: She still needed to believe that Sherlock was working for her.

"Well, off you go, then," she said with a smile.

"You're sure?"

"Of course. I'll see you when you get home."

He hesitated. "I could-"

"John, for Heaven's sake."

"Yeah. Okay. I'll see you in a bit," he said. Gave her a peck on the cheek and then he got the hell out of there.

Barts was too far from the clinic to ride, so he left his bicycle leaning against the wall in the break room and hailed a cab, instead, but with the traffic it was nearly half seven before he reached the hospital. As he paid the driver his phone pinged again. Sherlock. _GCMS_ , the new message said. The gas chromatograph-mass spectrometres were in a different part of the building than Sherlock's usual haunt. How he knew that John had just arrived would have to remain one of those unsolved mysteries that John filed under 'How does Sherlock know anything?'.

When he reached the lab he found the detective pacing with his usual level of nervous tension as the GCMS ran behind him, but John perceived a hint of triumph in his bearing, too.

"John," Sherlock said, looking up with an exultant gleam in his eye that confirmed the assessment. "Is it Christmas? It feels like Christmas."

"Sorry?"

"I know what killed Magnussen. Take a look." He handed over four pages of test results. "Tissue analyses for heart, kidney, and liver. The brain sample's still running."

John studied the structural formula depicted on the page: a familiar-looking molecule. "Is this a steroid?"

Sherlock smiled. "Look at the next page," he said. "Recognize it?"

John turned to the charted abundance over time analysis. "C31-H42-N2-O6," he read. "No. A steroidal alkaloid? What is it?"

"Batrachotoxin," Sherlock said, unable to contain his elation. Blank stupidity from John. "An almost perfect, foolproof murder weapon. Never dreamt I'd be lucky enough to see it in action, though. No coroner would ever think to look for it and they'd never find it with a routine tox screen. There's no known antidote and it kills within seconds. It's one of the deadliest cardio- and neuro-toxins known. It works by permanently opening the sodium channels in the nerves, which-"

"Paralysis. Asphyxia."

"Exactly. And floods the heart muscles with acetylcholine."

"Arrhythmia," John said at once. "V-fib. None of which show up on autopsy."

Sherlock grinned. "As nearly perfect as a murder weapon can get. It's far more toxic than tetrodotoxin, and tetrodotoxin itself is over a thousand times more toxic than cyanide. The skin of the average adult frog contains enough batrachotoxin to kill a hundred people. Two-tenths of a microgram is all it takes to kill a man."

"Wait-'frog'?"

"The golden dart frog. _Phyllobates terribilis_ , native to Colombia. Oh, John, I am _so_ glad you didn't let me shoot him. This is so much better, so much more elegant. I only wish I'd thought of it."

"Sherlock."

"Well, I say better. Personally I'd have gone with something more prolonged and painful-strychnine comes to mind."

"Not funny."

"Oh, don't tell me you aren't pleased as well."

"Yeah, you know, that's another thing. Magnussen's dead. Why are we not celebrating?"

"Common decency?" Sherlock suggested. "No?"

"Yeah, you're missing the gene for that. So what's the problem?"

Sherlock sighed. "Magnussen's power to reveal Mary to her enemies is gone. I'm not so sure about the power of the person who told him about her."

"Someone _else_ is running around with that information?"

"I believe so, yes."

John stared at him in dismay.

"Yes, granted," Sherlock said bitterly. "'Good thing you didn't kill him, Sherlock. It would have been for naught.' On the plus side, if that person wanted to destroy Mary he'd probably have done so before now."

"'Probably.' Any idea who it is?"

Sherlock turned away to pace again, but this time it was out of frustration. "No. There's something I'm not seeing yet. Something tying together Mary, Magnussen, and the murderer. Whether the murderer is the same as Magnussen's informant I can't say, either."

He was getting worked up again, and to forestall that John tried to steer him back to the last thing that he did have an answer for. "Well. Venomous frogs. That's...novel."

"Not venomous," Sherlock said didactically, stopping his pacing. "Toxic. Poisonous. There's a difference."

"How does that work, then?"

"The frogs secrete the toxin through their skin when they're stressed. The indigenous Colombians apply the toxin to darts, let it dry, and then use the darts when they hunt for food. It's an incredibly stable compound; darts dipped in it are lethal for up to a year, but once it comes into contact with the victim's mucous membranes..."

"It takes effect within minutes of contact."

"Seconds. Almost instantaneously."

"Well no one pitched a frog at Magnussen, did they? Where'd it come from, anyway? Smuggled in from Colombia? Or the toxin alone was brought in? And how did Magnussen come into contact with it?"

Sherlock couldn't wait to explain. "You remember that he'd been signing documents when he died, yes?" he said eagerly.

"Yes."

"And that on the floor beside the body was a pen."

John didn't remember that specifically, but obviously Sherlock did. "Okay."

"The pen was a Cross special commemorative edition Year of the Goat eighteen-karat gold rollerball pen with black ink. Three hundred and twenty pounds retail. Now: Did you notice how the documents were signed?"

John considered. "Black ink?"

"Black _fountain pen_ ink." He waited expectantly.

John said slowly, as he worked it out, "So he was signing the documents with a fountain pen...Gets up, dies almost instantly, and after he died...what, someone switched the fountain pen for a rollerball?"

"Exactly."

"Why would someone do that? More to the point, _who_ did that?"

"Well, the 'why' is obvious."

Not to John. After a moment he tentatively offered, "Because...the murderer didn't want the police to find the fountain pen. Why, because it had his fingerprints on it?"

"Possible, but it's unlikely anyone's prints would be on the pen other than Magnussen's."

"What, then?"

"What if the pen carried the poison?"

John thought about that for a moment. "No. You just said it requires contact with the mucous membranes. No toxin like that would kill on contact with his fingertips. Not that quickly."

"Yes, but think, John," Sherlock said. "Two weeks ago, when the countess broke the story. You and I watched the coverage. The news showed a montage of video clips of Magnussen. Addressing the board, at a press conference, at the opening of a new building. Remember?"

"Not specifically, but go on."

"One of the clips showed him signing a deal to acquire another company. It was only two or three seconds of video, but he _chewed on his pen_. The pens in his drawer and the one on the floor? They showed clear evidence of the same fairly disgusting habit."

"Someone who knew that he did that wiped a frog on his pen?"

"Inelegantly put but essentially correct. Lestrade, as usual, was wrong."

"About what?"

"Life is short and the list is long, but in this case I meant about the size of the suspect pool. It's limited to the number of people who knew of that habit, had a motive to kill him, had access to batrachotoxin, and had access to the pen."

"Mary? She got into the office once before."

"No, no, no," Sherlock said impatiently. "Not her style at all, and the last time she was in his office she threatened him for the information he had on her. Traditionally extracting information involves a gun, not a reptile."

"Frogs are amphibians."

" _Anyway,_ the question is less who was able to place the pen and more who could have removed it."

"Janine found the body," John said. "She said she went straight downstairs to call the police, but she could have lied, I suppose."

"She could have," Sherlock agreed, "but think of what else went on. She didn't just go downstairs and call the police and then sit there doing her nails. Well, actually, she probably did. But Magnussen had a security detail in place. Janine would naturally have said something to them, they would have gone upstairs to check on their boss, and at least one of them's got a criminal record and the prison tats to prove it."

"So you suspect the security detail."

"Too soon to say for certain, but batrachotoxin's a sophisticated murder weapon and if one of them was involved it suggests that someone far more sophisticated was directing him."

"I'm going to call Lestrade. Let him know that the-"

"No, don't," Sherlock said sharply.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not working for Scotland Yard."

"But you asked him for the security footage."

"I said I'm not working for them. Just this once they can work for me."

John sighed. "Okay. How'd the killer get his hands on a poison that exotic, then?"

"The frogs produce the poison," Sherlock said, "but they're not the only source of it. In fact, they don't produce it at all unless they're fed their native diet of _choresine_ beetles. Frogs caught in the wild and kept in captivity gradually lose their toxicity over time, and frogs born in captivity never acquire it. The beetles are the ultimate source of the toxin. What we're looking for is someone, probably at a research laboratory or university, who uses the beetles or frogs or more likely both in their research on batrachotoxin."

"Well, there can't be very many of those. But research for what?"

"Well, among other things, there's the idea that batrachotoxin might be useful as a local anesthetic."

John scoffed. "Too bad lidocaine hasn't been invented. It doesn't involve licking frogs."

"It wouldn't be my first choice, either, although I imagine that the goal is to synthesize the molecule and then reproduce it, not operate frog farms. Keeping exotic and dangerous animals requires a licence, though, and I should think that will narrow the sources considerably."


	15. Chapter 15

**Tuesday, 13 January 2015**.

In fact the licencing requirement narrowed the sources to one. A thirty minute cab ride from Baker Street brought them to the Francis Crick Institute in Mill Hill.

The ground floor directory provided the floor and office number of Dr. Andrea Newman, MD, PhD specializing in cellular and molecular medicine.

"You called ahead for an appointment, I hope," John said as they boarded the lift.

"Nope."

John sighed. "Because that would guarantee that we didn't waste the trip."

"No, it would guarantee that we did. People find ways to be unavailable when they know a detective wants to ask them questions."

"Do you even know whether she's in?"

"She is."

Sherlock paced right past Newman's third-storey office to the laboratory at the end of the hall and through the double doors into a large, high-ceilinged room. Two rows of four black-topped wood tables occupied the center of the space, and along the far wall stood wheeled racks of glass aquariums under UV lights, each containing, as far as John could make out, six frogs, most lemon-yellow, some a pale, minty green colour, and all about four centimetres in length. A separate set of racks at the back of the room held glass tanks of beetles-no doubt the _choresine_ genus Sherlock spoke of.

The doctor was in her mid-forties, John estimated, with hazel eyes and medium-brown hair gathered in a ponytail. She and two much younger, white-coated men sat at a lab table scattered with thick black three-ring binders, and one of the men was using a stylus to enter data on a tablet.

"Ah, Dr. Newman," Sherlock said, and all three scientists turned to stare at them. Sherlock eyed the two men. "Get out."

"Sherlock," John muttered under his breath.

The imperious introduction got Newman's back up at once. "Who are you?" she demanded.

Instead of answering her Sherlock addressed the men. "I said _get out_."

They looked uncertainly at Newman.

"If you want a meeting, make an appointment through the Institute," she said. "Otherwise I'm calling security." She reached for her phone.

"This _is_ our appointment," Sherlock said. "You'll answer our questions now, Doctor, or by this time tomorrow you'll be telling the police about the visitor you had last week. The one who asked about the frogs."

She stared at him, deciding. "We can talk in my office," she said, and as she closed the office door behind them, "Who are you?"

"Sherlock Holmes," Sherlock said. "Dr. John Watson."

She sat down behind her desk and while it was obvious to John that she was alarmed by their visit, she persisted in trying to project cool unconcern. "Well?" she asked.

"Charles Magnussen died yesterday morning."

"The newspaper guy. The one who was blackmailing Lady Ruffner?"

"The same."

She shrugged. "It's all over the news that he died. Why are you interrupting my work over tabloid fodder?"

Sherlock reached into his pocket, withdrew the GCMS report and flipped it onto her desk, open to the page with the depiction of the batrachotoxin molecule. "You recognize that structural formula, of course."

"Of course. I work with it every day. It's batrachotoxin."

"The rest of that report details the GCMS analyses of Magnussen's liver, kidney, brain, and heart tissue, which contained varying levels of batrachotoxin." As she went pale he smiled without humour. "Now, how do you suppose a newsman in a London high-rise stumbled across an exotic poison whose only UK source is the research department that you oversee?"

Her mouth opened but no sound emerged.

"The frogs, Doctor," Sherlock snapped. "Tell us who asked about them last week."

"We're not the police," John offered. "If you tell us everything that happened there's still a good chance that we can keep you out of it."

"Everything," Sherlock emphasized. "Leave nothing out. I'll know if you're lying."

She licked her lips nervously and glanced out the window, but there was no help there. Lacing her fingers together on the desk she stared at her hands as she spoke. "Last week. Tuesday. A man came to see me here just as I was about to leave for the night. Said he had evidence that I'd misrepresented some information on my CV. He said it was so minor-nothing at all, really-but that the Crick would be very interested to know about it, since the credibility of the Institute's researchers redounds on its reputation."

"'Redounds'?" Sherlock said.

"That's what he said. I remember the exact words it because it sounded so ridiculous, and he looked so... _disreputable_ otherwise. I mean, he was wearing a coat and tie so he didn't look out of place here at first glance, but there was something about him. Of course I said he was talking rubbish about the CV."

"And was he?" John asked.

"Not exactly," she said. "In 1995 I was enrolled in Johns Hopkins' medical scientist training programme. My roommate was a journalism major. I paid her to write a paper that I submitted during my thesis lab. Not the actual thesis. Just a mid-term paper, something like five percent of the evaluation. She needed the money, I needed the free time to work on other things...It was a non-event. I compiled all the data, oversaw its organization within the paper, did all the technical work. Everything except write and type the text on the page. Technically I submitted someone else's work as my own, but the structure of it-that was all mine. I've never been as good at writing up my results as I've been at compiling them, and I'd been desperate to spend more time on my thesis. It seemed like a win-win arrangement. I have no idea how this man found out about something so...so ridiculous. So small. At the time it didn't seem like a crime to ask a writer to write."

"It wasn't," Sherlock said. "But what you did next was."

"I didn't do anything next!" she protested.

"Wrong," Sherlock said. "You gave a blackmailer with obvious criminal intent unfettered access to one of the deadliest toxins in the world."

"I can't afford to lose this job!" she cried. "I've got a family to support."

"At any cost," Sherlock sneered.

"Sherlock," John said, and Sherlock scowled but backed off fractionally.

"He said he just wanted to _look_ at the frogs," Newman insisted. "That was it."

John crossed his arms. "So you, what, had coffee in the faculty lounge while he carried on?"

"Of course not," Sherlock said. "She's lying."

"I'm not!"

"How do you know?" John asked, ignoring her.

"The aquariums in that laboratory. They're labeled with numbers, not text. The numbers correspond to the groups and sub-groups of animals designated for each particular clinical trial that's underway. The 'visitor' would have had no idea which sort of frog he was looking for-which were toxic and which were not. She had to tell him which sort to use to obtain the toxin."

"Nice," John said, disgusted. "Did you help him put on gloves, too?"

"He threatened to report me!" she hissed. "What was I supposed to do?"

"The police would have been a good start," Sherlock said. "Compared to a twenty year-old indiscretion, turning in someone who was shopping around for neurotoxins would have made you a hero."

"A hero with a dead family," she replied. "He said that if I called the police his 'associates' would know who turned him in and 'take care of the problem' for him. I know it sounds vague now," she added defensively, because they were regarding her sceptically, "but it was obvious what he meant." She caught up a family photo from the corner of her desk and turned it so they could see. "Look: He was holding that when he said it. My husband and kids. What would _you_ assume he meant? I didn't ask him to put it in writing. I'm not apologizing for that."

"What was your relationship with your roommate at university?" Sherlock asked.

"Good," she said. "Unremarkable."

"Keep in touch now?"

"No, not since that term, in fact. She transferred to California somewhere, I think it was."

"So," Sherlock said, "a stranger came to your work, threatened you with exposure, and you obligingly helped him pick out a frog. Then what happened?"

"Nothing. He just left. I took the rest of the day off and went home to check on my kids."

"Tell me more about the man who came to see you. What did he look like? Accent? Anything you can remember."

She reached into the drawer of her desk and handed him an article printed from a newspaper's website. "See for yourself. Two days after he was here the local paper ran that."

Sherlock glanced at it, then looked up with a distant expression. John leant over a bit so he could see. The headline read, ' _Brixton man found dead in Crick car park_.'

"We're keeping the article," Sherlock said, handing it to John, and turned to go. At the door he stopped and looked back. "Oh, and Dr. Newman? You're an idiot."

ooooo

As they started toward the lift Sherlock said, "You know, John, this investigation has the feeling of looking a gift frog in the mouth."

"Not funny," John said.

"Too soon?"

"Yeah. Try again in never."

"I'm not sorry Magnussen's dead."

"You've never been sorry anyone's dead."

"Better still, he was killed by someone who used blackmail to obtain the murder weapon. You have to appreciate the irony."

The lift doors closed and John scanned the article as they descended. "One round from a handgun, back of the head," he said. "Cops say it was probably a drug deal that went bad. What do you think? Want to ask for the security footage of the car park?"

"No point," Sherlock said. "There won't be anything useful on it. It's obviously a professional execution. A pro can easily work around that sort of surveillance."

"Says the coroner thought he'd been there two days when he was found."

"Killed just as he got into his car with the poison: as soon as he became expendable."

"Victim's name was Nicholas Andrews," John noted. "Know him?"

"No."

They reached the ground floor and as the doors opened John said, "How do you think he got the information to threaten her?"

"He didn't."

"But she said-"

"She said he told her that she 'misrepresented something' on her CV. He didn't specify what. He could have approached ninety-eight percent of the employees in the country with that accusation and been right. When do you think an employer last read an accurate resume?"

"Mine's accurate."

"Besides yours. Five hundred years ago people thought the world was flat. The fact that it wasn't was irrelevant because they _behaved_ as if it were."

"So...consulting my analogy-to-English dictionary, the Institute wouldn't really have a problem over who typed up a twenty year-old paper, but Newman behaved as thoughthey would, and that was good enough to give Andrews leverage over her," John said. "He cashed in on her guilt."

"Newman's an idiot," Sherlock said as they climbed into their waiting cab. "Why else would she think that an American with whom she was on good terms twenty years ago would suddenly contact a random London criminal over something so stupidly prosaic? Baker Street," he added to the driver.

As usual, he lapsed into silence as they drove away and John didn't try to draw him out. Once they regained the flat, however, he asked, "Why _do_ you care who killed Magnussen?"

"Clay. Bricks. The usual," Sherlock said with a shrug.

"That is utter tosh."

Sherlock smiled to himself. "Magnussen's been incredibly inconvenient to a lot of people for a very long time. Any of his victims over the years would have been justified in killing him; it's a common enough fate for blackmailers, after all. So why now? And why using such an elaborate method that requires accomplices? Most people would just grab the nearest gun and-" He stopped abruptly and cleared his throat. "Anyway, the fact that Andrews was executed argues for the involvement of someone used to keeping his hands clean. A boss at the top of a chain of command. Then there's the murder weapon: It suggests calculation. Dispassion. The security footage tells us that the murder happened essentially by remote control. That makes it very unlikely that he was killed by one of his victims."

"Okay," John said. "So the killer's not personally invested in the murder. Financially, maybe?"

"No. The killer _was_ personally invested, but apparently not _emotionally_ invested. I imagine you're right about the financial part, though. So we're back to the question of timing. Why now? What changed?"

"Well," John suggested, "you said the stock price of the CMNews parent company's down-what was it? Over eighty percent since the story broke?"

"Someone was cutting his losses. Someone who either has or wants to get control of what Magnussen was propping up before he became such a liability to it. We're looking for a professional criminal with the knowledge and wherewithal to contract out for both a minor blackmailer and that blackmailer's executioner. Someone who wanted Magnussen dead even though it's now common knowledge that everything he had on his blackmail victims would die with him. Information is power, but it's not the only thing that is."

"Then we're back to money," John said.

"Mm. Someone wants the CMNews empire for his personal chip and pin machine."


	16. Chapter 16

**Wednesday, 14 January 2015**

With his left hand cupping his right elbow, Sherlock stood on the coffee table, absently gnawing his thumb and twitching his pinkie as he contemplated the sofa wall. Across it were pinned labelled index cards, photographs, and dozens of articles from newspapers, magazines, and web pages, the whole connected by an interlacing web of blue, yellow, and red yarn looped around the pushpins and forming readily-apparent visual links between the disparate items tacked to the wall. After a time he climbed down from the table, stepped to the window, and peered out as a cab discharged John onto the pavement.

Since he returned to living full-time with Mary a little over two weeks ago, John had been making these daily after-work visits to Baker Street, visits which helped him maintain the essentially true narrative that he was working with Sherlock on a way to ensure Mary's safety. Despite Magnussen's death, John told her, Sherlock believed that she remained at risk of exposure because Magnussen was not the only one who knew of her pre-Morstan identity. The information about her had been relayed to Magnussen-probably sold to him-and the seller was still abroad. Like nearly everything else he'd told her, John believed this himself and repeated it to her in good faith even while he knew that Sherlock wasn't sharing everything with him. Mary therefore remained convinced of John's veracity, Sherlock's stupidity, and her own need to wait just a little longer before she acted against either of them, all of which suited Sherlock perfectly.

The visits also helped maintain John's sanity. As he turned away from paying the driver and stepped toward the front door, Sherlock glimpsed his tense, closed-off expression. At no time could John's temperament be described as ebullient, but this grim, sustained resignation, this sense that he was merely enduring his days, was new. John had underestimated the strain of the ongoing deception. Sherlock had not, and he knew that John found the dissembling, which would never come naturally to him, upsetting and exhausting.

"John," Sherlock said when he heard his step on the landing.

When John didn't answer at once Sherlock turned: Somewhere between the front door and the flat the tension in John's face visibly eased. He still looked tired, but nothing like as despondent as he had just a minute ago. Interesting.

At the moment he was staring in a very simple manner at the living room wall, which he last saw yesterday when it was bare. "Wow," he said, impressed. "I was going to ask whether you were making any progress."

"Some," Sherlock said, and even if it had not been for the ruined wallpaper the lively gleam in his eye would have told John that he was understating things.

"Tell me," John said, taking off his coat and gloves.

"Nicholas Andrews," Sherlock said.

"The frog guy they found in the Crick car park."

"Lorry driver for something called ServPros, a restaurant supply company serving the south of England. Criminal record includes auto theft and petty larceny convictions." Sherlock waved his hand dismissively. "He's neither here nor there." He pointed to an index card pinned to the wall, on which he'd written 'ServPros' in felt tip marker. Six other cards were arranged in a column above it. "ServPros, however, is a front company and these-" waving at the other names in the column "-are the other companies in the chain, all of which ultimately trace back to this man." He pointed to one of the three portrait photos he'd cut from a glossy magazine and pinned to the wall above the rest of the mess. "Lars Bernstrom, a Swedish businessman who owns a company called Capital Asset Management. Mikkel Aarslander, a Norwegian banker," he added, indicating the next man. "President and CEO of Contempro Associates Manufacturing. James Dutcher, Toronto oilman. Runs Canada Agriculture and Mining, Limited."

"Okay so far," John said.

Like the names above the ServPro card, these company names were written in Sherlock's handsome script on index cards pinned under the corresponding businessman's photograph. Below each card cascaded a column of others. "Each of the companies at the top of these columns is a legitimate, publicly traded business," Sherlock said. "The rest-" pointing to the other cards below them "-are primarily shells. Fronts, in some cases."

John was already lost. "What's the point of them all?"

"Ultimately money," Sherlock said. "The usual. Boring. More immediately, the shell companies keep these men at, to take just Dutcher's case, up to twelve removes from the criminal activity where the real money is. It would take a remarkably enterprising and imaginative investigator to link him to them and follow the trail back." He gave a little wave. "Hello."

"So you linked this guy to at least twelve illegal operations."

"No. The companies themselves aren't illegal. Shell companies can be perfectly legitimate vehicles for business transactions. The mere fact of being a shell says nothing about its actual purpose. All of the twelve businesses I've linked to Dutcher, for example, are legitimate: companies involved in construction, oil services, port services, and so on."

"Then what's the point?"

"Money laundering and drug smuggling," Sherlock said.

"Well..." John stood with his arms crossed, considering the material on the wall. The photos of the three men all appeared to have been clipped from the same source. He glanced around at the mess on the coffee table and sofa and spied a thick magazine: The 2014 annual report for CMNews. He turned to the page listing brief descriptions of each board member and yes: That was the source of the three photos. When he looked up Sherlock was smiling at him. "These guys are all on the Magnussen News board of directors."

"Yep."

That clarified very little for John. "Sorry. I don't get it. They're all rich in their own right, aren't they? Nobody gets a seat on a board like that unless they've already got money. Why are they going to all this trouble to hide even more income?"

"Because they're not using it to buy more homes in St. Croix," Sherlock said. "They're reinvesting it to finance even more criminal activity."

John just stared at him.

"You know, John," Sherlock said, "your unworldliness is a never-ending source of amazement."

"I'm not-"

"Think about it. Dutcher made his fortune in oil field services. Canada Agriculture and Mining. Look." He tapped his laptop to wake it, rapidly typed something into the search engine, then turned the computer so John could see the screen and pointed to the image that appeared. "Foam air unit," he said.

The screen showed a semi-trailer resting on its landing gear, its flat bed loaded with a spaghetti-like series of ducting, pipes, and valves and topped by a two-metre square metal box at the trailer's cab end. John couldn't begin to guess the purpose of the thing or even associate it with a particular heavy industry. "The hell is it?"

"A foam air unit, obviously," Sherlock said, as though John was an idiot.

"You don't know what that is, either."

"No. Nor care."

"Well?"

Sherlock sighed. "You're a drug smuggler, John. If only there were a device on wheels in which you could conceal tens of kilos of your product for easy transport while laundering the profits through a legitimate business."

John frowned again at the screen. "What, you think they stuff drugs into all these...these pipes and things?"

"I'm certain that they do. Then they connect it to a lorry cab and drive it off. Or load it onto a container ship. Two of Dutcher's subsidiary companies make these devices in China and sell them world-wide. Heroin flows in from Pakistan, say, over trade routes that are centuries old. Whatever the destination, no port inspector's going to take all that heavy machinery apart on the off chance of finding heroin inside, and even if he were inclined to do so, bribes ensure that business continues uninterrupted. It couldn't be easier to import both legal and illegal products in the same shipment."

"And all these other companies, they're the same sort of set-up?"

"Many if not most of them," Sherlock said.

"Okay. So three of Magnussen's board members use legitimate companies to launder money from their drug sideline. Are they linked, these three guys? Is the whole CMNews board moonlighting like that?"

"Excellent questions. Taking the last first, no. These three are unique for enterprise among the board members, but yes, they are linked to each other. They obviously know each other and probably work together outside of the news board."

"Do you think they murdered Magnussen?" John asked. "You said that Andrews worked for one of the shell companies. Did one of them hire him to get the toxin? The board met in Magnussen's office the night before he died, right? So one of them could have put the pen in his desk."

"You _are_ on form tonight, John," Sherlock said, pleased. "But it's a bit premature to pin Magnussen's murder on any of them yet."

"But you think that's where the evidence is pointing."

"I think the evidence collected so far doesn't rule them out."

"Great. More caginess," John said. "Well...Do you think Magnussen knew about their little hobbies? Would that give them a motive to kill him?"

"Oh, he undoubtedly knew. He couldn't fail to figure it out and use it, assuming he didn't place them on his board for that very reason. They have worldwide criminal reach. Smuggling and money laundering weren't Magnussen's area, but these men would have been the source of some incredibly valuable information. For a blackmailer the list of officials taking bribes in a single international port alone would be worth the price of admission."

"What else?" John asked, because clearly Sherlock wasn't finished showing off.

"Notice anything interesting about the parent companies?"

John scanned the wall again. _Capital Asset Management. Contempro Associates Manufacturing. Canada Agriculture and Mining_. "You mean like they all have the same initials?"

"Like that," Sherlock said. "Like Charles Augustus Magnussen."

"I don't get it."

"Someone's idea of a joke," Sherlock said.

"Magnussen?"

"I very much doubt it."

His phone chimed with an incoming email and he at once sat down at the computer to open it. A pleased grin spread across his face as he read. He sent the email to the printer, then collected it along with several other sheets already in the tray and pinned them to the wall as John watched.

"Are those screen shots?" John asked.

"Yes," Sherlock said with considerable satisfaction. "Take a look."

John stepped up and peered more closely at the pages, which looked familiar. "Is that...?"

"LineToo," Sherlock confirmed. "Their call records. There are several incredibly talented pickpockets among my homeless network, and they've managed to acquire that information from all three phones within the last two hours. Impressive. Remind me to tip generously."

"That's that app Mary's been using to call Janine."

"Mm. Notice anything else?"

Not immediately. John scanned from one page to the next, looking for similarities between the incoming and outgoing numbers listed on each account, and within a few seconds found one that all three accounts shared in common, although he didn't recognize the number itself. "This one," he said, pointing. "They all make and receive calls to that number."

"You don't recognize it?"

"No. Why, whose is it?"

"Janine Hawkins's."

ooooo

Janine Hawkins. John wasn't sure how much to make of that; she was Magnussen's PA, after all, and the three men were on his board of directors, so it wasn't unthinkable that they'd speak by phone, although why that required a separate mobile line he couldn't say. Perhaps it was a way to guard against corporate espionage. Having made the revelation, however, Sherlock wouldn't elaborate, and John recognized the signs: The detective was done sharing for the moment.

Instead John phoned for Chinese delivery. Sherlock flung himself into his fireside chair and could be arsed neither to answer the door nor come to the table, so John paid the charges and placed a carton of food and a pair of chopsticks on the side table next to him, then retired to his own chair with his entree.

Sherlock eyed him critically. "Really, John," he said with disapprobation. "You're a surgeon. Your hand-to-eye coordination should encompass the use of chopsticks."

"Maybe it does," John said. "But maybe we're in England and someone invented forks."

"Or maybe you're afraid of putting out your eye."

"Or putting most of the food on the floor," John said, and Sherlock smiled.

That was the last they spoke for some time. Instead John addressed his food and Sherlock slumped in the chair, his hands steepled under his nose, eyes half-closed, and his long legs stretched out straight before him. Roaming the courtyards of his mind palace, no doubt. Not for the first time John wondered what it was like in there, in the mind of a gormless genius. It was one of those tantalizing but unsolvable puzzles, of course, like contemplating infinity or trying to imagine how a dog thinks without words. But he preferred the mystery to the certain anxiety of going home. His fork scraped the bottom of the carton, dismaying him: With the meal over he had one less reason to stay.

"You can't delay it forever," Sherlock said, startling him. If John couldn't get inside his head, Sherlock clearly had no trouble getting inside John's.

Sighing, he set the empty carton on the end table. "No." But he didn't get up, either, and his expression of bleak resignation was back.

"Bad?" Sherlock asked.

"Bad enough," John said. "I hate this, Sherlock. I hate that we have to do this, that I have to lie, that she lied, that I don't even know why. Why any of it. And you know what the worst part is?" It was obviously a rhetorical question and Sherlock didn't answer. "The worst part is how far I've had to sink to find something that doesn't make me want to hang myself. Ever since this started I couldn't get my head around...around her being the mother of my child. Turns out-" He stopped. God, he was sick of it, how everything stabbed him to the heart these days. "She's not pregnant," he continued, not looking at Sherlock. "I don't know if she ever was, but...She's been using the second bedroom. Said with the pregnancy she felt...She thought...Anyway, we decided that it would be a good idea to 'take it slow.' Build trust." Bitter laugh. "Trust, my arse. Before all this happened I'd have cut off my hand before I went through her laptop, but now...Did you know there are websites where women can buy faked pregnancy tests? Faked sonograms?"

Sherlock answered in a low voice. "Yes."

"Yeah, well, I didn't. They even make silicone pregnancy bumps, for God's sake."

"John, I-"

"Don't. I told you: It's the first thing in three months that hasn't made me want to jump out a window. _That's_ how far I've had to sink: That the plus side is I don't have to work out visitation with a serial killer." He looked at Sherlock. "And do not tell me that you knew, or suspected, or that you could tell by looking at me that we hadn't been-I don't even want to know how you do that." He took a deep breath, then exhaled and stood. "I'm off," he said, but stopped suddenly and peered toward the fireplace.

"Got a visitor," he said with a nod, and Sherlock turned to see what he was looking at: Under the fireplace brush crouched a small specimen of _eratigena atrica_ -a giant house spider. "Don't let Mrs. Hudson see him."

"It."

"Him."

"How do you know?"

"I don't, for sure. It could be a young one. But the males are usually smaller than the females, so...balance of probability."

Sherlock was staring at him and obviously didn't register the humour. "Say that again."

"Uh...balance of probability?"

"About the spiders."

"The males are usually smaller than the females?"

"Sexual dimorphism."

"Sorry?" But he didn't get an answer and based on the tense, remote expression that he recognized as indicative of Sherlock's 'eureka' moments, he wasn't going to.

"All the things she never did," Sherlock murmured.

"What?"

Sherlock launched out of the chair and rummaged excitedly through the kitchen drawers. "Tape...tape...Where do we keep the tape?"

"I...What sort?"

"The sticky sort, obviously. Hah!" He hurried off to the bathroom with the roll. John followed, baffled, and found him on his hands and knees with a strip of duct tape wrapped round his fingers, methodically pressing it to the floor, lifting, moving over a few centimetres, and repeating the process.

"What're you-No. Please don't tell me."

"I've found more usable evidence at processed crime scenes," Sherlock complained.

"I hate to discourage you," John said, "but typically people mop bathrooms with, you know: a mop. We're using tape because?"

"Because I'm not cleaning," Sherlock said impatiently. "I'm collecting samples."

"For...?"

"DNA testing, obviously. I need some from you, as well, for comparison," he said, looking up. "Bit of blood should do it."

"I'm not stabbing myself for your experiment."

"Saliva, then."

"I'll think about it."

"John, please. Just suck a swab. You know where they are."

"For God's sake," John said, turning away.

"Put it in an evidence bag," Sherlock called after him. He was pressing the tape behind the toilet when he suddenly found what he was looking for: a single long strand of hair. "Never mind! Got it!" He hurried into the kitchen, ransacked the debris on the table until he found a small plastic evidence bag, then hurriedly stuffed the hair into it as John watched, bemused.

"What are you doing tomorrow?" Sherlock asked, shrugging hurriedly into his coat.

"Work," John said. "The usual."

"All day?"

"Yeah. The usual shift. Why?"

"Mm," Sherlock said, knotting his scarf. "Good."

"'Good'? Since when is work good and not boring?"

"Is Mary working tomorrow?"

"You know Thursday's her day off. Are you okay?"

Sherlock glanced at his watch. "That's not much time."

"Time for what? Sherlock."

But Sherlock was already thundering down the stairs two at a time.

"Thanks for coming round, John," John said sarcastically. "Any time, mate. I'll see myself out, shall I?"


	17. Chapter 17

**Thursday, 15 January 2015**

"I left orders that you weren't to be allowed in," Mycroft said coldly when Sherlock strolled into his office just three minutes after his own arrival.

"Which is why I used the service entrance," Sherlock said. "A moving dolly and a couple of cartons for props...Your people are no more observant than the national average."

"What do you want?"

"Nothing. Well, I say nothing. I want something, but in proportion to what I'm going to offer you, what I want in exchange really is nothing."

Mycroft eyed him sceptically. "Well?"

Sherlock eyed him back, his expression bland.

"I can't agree to anything unless I know the terms, Sherlock," Mycroft said impatiently.

"Mary Watson," Sherlock said.

"What about her?"

"She's in real danger."

"Magnussen's dead."

"Magnussen wasn't the only one who knew who she used to be and who her enemies are."

"Sherlock, if you're suggesting that I-"

Sherlock laughed, but there was no humour in it. "I think you would, if the motherland required it, but no." He couldn't stand the tension any longer and began pacing the room. "Mary's enemies have been informed of her new identity and told where to find her."

"How do you know that?"

"Because Magnussen's dead. He didn't acquire the information about her in a vacuum. It was given to him years ago. Whether it was sold to him or just put in his way I'm not sure, but it's irrelevant. The same person who provided the information to him killed him four days ago. Mary Morstan used to work for James Moriarty as a sort of bodyguard. She had eyes and ears on him at Barts two years ago, and she's been working ever since to destroy the person she holds responsible for his death."

"By insinuating herself into John's life and killing him and then you."

This was why Sherlock liked talking to Mycroft: He so rarely had to explain himself. "I believe so. But now that Magnussen's dead-"

"His murderer needs you alive for the same reason Magnussen did. Power over me."

"And that brought Mary into conflict with Magnussen's killer, who has informed her enemies where to find her. It gets her out of the way and keeps me safe. I'd like to protect her from that if possible, but even if it's not the important thing is that when they reach her she's nowhere near John."

"Of course," Mycroft said. It was always about John. "And how does he feel about that? Oh-I see. He doesn't know."

"He knows enough," Sherlock said. "He knows that the marriage is over."

"Does he."

Sherlock turned to look suspiciously at him. "Yes. He does."

"And you know this how?"

"He told me-look, none of that matters right now."

"Very well. Continue."

Instead Sherlock took a few more turns up and down the room.

"And if you could sit down or at least stand still. You're giving me a headache."

"I want to offer Mary a-an _arrangement_ ," Sherlock said, continuing to pace. "Her enemies will find her now. That's already in motion and I can't stop it. Neither can you," he added.

"Not sure that I would," Mycroft said with a shrug. "With an eye to the fact that she shot you, I'd be inclined to ease their way."

"I don't want her dead."

"Why on earth not?"

"Because it would hurt John!" Sherlock cried impatiently.

"I see. Is that your New Year's resolution? 'Stop hurting John'?"

"Dammit, Mycroft-"

"Fine. Get on with it."

"I want to offer her a new identity and prison out of the country. That will keep her safe from-from her enemies."

"For a time, perhaps. The bratva have a long memory."

That was cause for a second glance, but of course Mycroft had his own avenues for discovering anything Sherlock could. "It will give her a longer life expectancy that she has now, which I estimate is no more than three days, on the outside."

"Three?" Mycroft said, amused. "I think rather less than forty-eight hours."

"If you can arrange for her to be housed with other high-value prisoners and if she keeps a low profile she could measure it in decades. Her alternative is a sniper's bullet."

"And what will you do when she inevitably refuses?"

"Why would she refuse?"

"Would _you_ take prison over a bullet to the brain?"

"I can escape from a prison," Sherlock said. "It turns out bullets, not so much."

"You think she's a flight risk, then?"

"No. I said _I_ could escape. She's a versatile, intelligent, dangerous woman, but she's not that good. Her options are fairly limited. Prison and life, or the bratva and death."

"Yes. Those are indeed her options. Well. And what will John be doing when the Russians come calling?"

Sherlock stopped pacing.

"You haven't thought of a way to keep him out of it yet. Sherlock-"

"It has to stop, Mycroft. This, where I cut him out, make decisions about his life without consulting him. Letting that charade go on for two years. None of this would be happening if I'd-"

"It was for his own safety. We went over this. Repeatedly. You agreed."

More nervous pacing. "I agreed. _I_ agreed. _He_ didn't agree."

"He _couldn't_ agree because he couldn't know. Why after all this time are you still agonising about something you can't change? It's not rational, and neither is blaming me."

Sherlock turned with an icy glare. "I don't blame you. I blame myself for listening to you." He waved dismissively. "It's neither here nor there now," he said impatiently. "What matters is that I can't risk him being anywhere around her if she rejects the deal. If he's with her when the bratva find her, they'll kill him too. You know how he is."

"I could have him detained."

" _No_. If he spends another afternoon in your custody I won't answer for your safety. Or mine," he added as an afterthought. "No. He's working today. She's not. I'm going to meet with her this afternoon. If she accepts I'll bring her to MI6. Then if he likes, John can make his good-bye safely, and that will be the end of it."

"I very much doubt that," Mycroft said dryly. "In any case, you haven't accounted for the fact that she's carrying his child. People tend to attach a great deal of sentiment to-"

"She's not."

"I beg your pardon?"

"She's not pregnant."

"You said-"

"I know what I said. I've suspected for some time, but John confirmed it yesterday. I believe she obtained an abortion shortly after she shot me. She and John were separated by then so it would have been a relatively simple matter for her to carry out the deception. Faking the pregnancy after that allowed her to retain potential leverage over him without actually handicapping herself physically. Alternative theory: She deliberately deceived me at the wedding but was never pregnant in fact. However, the first explanation accounts for her apparent dismay when I made the observation at the wedding, and I believe it's the more likely."

"Interesting," Mycroft said, sounding bored. "However, to return to my original question: What if she refuses your offer?"

"Three days, on the outside. If she refuses...John will come with me on the pretext of a case. I'm sure I can find something to catch his eye. The Russians will extract their revenge while we're out of the way, and..."

"He'll return home to pick up the pieces." Mycroft didn't look like he approved.

"Well what do you suggest?" Sherlock shouted.

Mycroft shrugged: He didn't really care. "What you're asking for can be arranged. What are you offering in exchange?"

" _Cherchez le femme_."

"If you could be a little more specific."

"James Moriarty's sister."

ooooo

 _Breakthrough on your case_ , Sherlock typed into his phone. _Baker St. 2 pm. Alone._

From his post at a first storey window of the Chalfont Court building directly across the street from his own flat, he commanded a view stretching nearly a half mile south down Baker Street and north to the point where the road converged with Allsop Place and Park Road. Whether Mary took a cab to the front door or walked part of the way he would see her coming, and in case she was as circumspect as he would be in her position he'd covered Sutton Lane and the Park Road end of Baker Street with his homeless spies, as well.

He sent the text and settled in to wait. At intervals the building shook with a bass rumble that he felt more than heard as Underground trains arriving and departing the Baker Street station rolled under the building's south facade.

The solution he was about to offer Mary was not ideal, although considering the circumstances it was by far his best option-and hers. Prior to Magnussen's death he'd opposed John's suggestion to turn her in to the authorities because doing so virtually guaranteed her exposure to her enemies, but with Magnussen dead she had nothing left to stay her hand against John-and her identity was already revealed. Prison and a solid ID from Mycroft was the only lifeline he could still offer her.

He deliberately arranged their meeting during business hours to ensure that John would be at the clinic, safely out of the way. John would be angry that Sherlock wasn't including him-again-and that too was less than ideal, but there was nothing for it. The marriage and his love for Mary might be over, but he was still John Watson. Unless she was in custody the Russians would reach her, and when that happened John would find a way to stand between them. Short of having him arrested, as Mycroft suggested, Sherlock thought he'd chosen the best way to keep John safe.

ooooo

"Baker Street," Mary said to the cab driver, and leant back for the fifteen-minute ride. She'd been expecting Sherlock's summons ever since Magnussen turned up dead four days ago. Whatever he wanted to see her about today didn't concern her over-much because there was nothing he could say to her that could possibly undermine what she had planned for him.

She wondered whether Sherlock himself killed Magnussen and decided that he didn't have the stones for it. He talked a good game and he'd apparently had Jim convinced of his steel, but she'd seen much more of him than Jim ever did. Oh, Jim knew about his soft spot for the doctor, of course, but he hadn't known the half of it. Jim hadn't spent six months watching Sherlock defy his own nature to plan a wedding, of all things; hadn't watched his anxiety mount as the date approached and the loss of his only friend impended. All that was good fun, but it was nothing to the elation she'd felt on her wedding night as she watched him take himself out of John's life. _You'll hardly need me around now that you have a real baby on the way,_ he'd said. Jim would have loved that, she thought. Utterly and completely adored it to see Sherlock Holmes, the soulless calculating machine, take all that pain just so his friend didn't have to feel a twinge. She'd never regretted Jim's loss like she had at that moment.

She wasn't a superstitious woman in the slightest, but if she did believe in a higher power she'd have sworn that Jim was guiding events. Even that whole debacle in Magnussen's offices had worked out in the end. She definitely hadn't seen that one coming and for a while she thought it had destroyed everything she'd worked so hard for. Surprises kept things interesting, though, and the adrenaline spike she'd felt that night had been one for the record books. Good choice, it turned out, not shooting Sherlock in the head. Of course if he'd died anyway she'd have fallen back on Plan B, enjoying John suffering through Sherlock's death instead of Sherlock suffering through John's-but really a second round of _that_ moaning and whinging would have been just too tedious. She'd have had to put John out of her misery pretty quickly if things had gone that route. In the event, however, Sherlock survived, and his long, painful recovery meant there'd been grief and to spare for John: Between his best friend's injury and the torment of watching his marriage fall apart, his emotional distress was just as acute and prolonged as Sherlock's physical pain. Considering the way she was about to bring their little saga to an end today, the last three months had been like eating the icing before her cake. Maybe it was true what idiots said, she thought with a smile: Everything works out for the best.

She had more than a year invested in clinic duty, pretending to care about the problems of whining, snotty-nosed patients, carefully maneuvering John Watson into marriage-and she shuddered at the thought of how close Sherlock came to ruining _that_ for her, showing up at the restaurant just as John finally sacked up enough to propose. If Holmes had revealed himself one minute earlier all that effort would have gone down in flames. And if he hadn't taken as long as he did to gad around the globe, if he'd returned while John was still in the early stages of his grief, she'd have had to find another way, but as it was things fell into place as though James Moriarty himself was clearing a path for her.

John talked a good game about Sherlock's brilliance and even Jim had respected his abilities, but personally she'd found him underwhelming. She had it on good authority that John was neither gay nor the least bit interested in Sherlock romantically, so what accounted for the hero worship? Oh, she knew why he hung around the guy: adrenaline junkie, and all that. But all that rubbish about brilliance bordering on prescience? She didn't see it. He was cleverer than average, granted, but Jim outmaneuvered him on the rooftop, forcing him into faking his death and leaving England. Sherlock's departure paved her way for avenging Jim, and she often wondered whether Jim planned it like that. It wouldn't surprise her; he was always a step or two ahead of her and miles ahead of everyone else, including Sherlock. He must have known that she'd pick up where he left off.

So Sherlock came off second-best to Jim, leaving her an opening with John that she could have driven a 747 through. She shot Sherlock and the fool still wanted to help her because he was besotted with her husband. It was no surprise to her that John threw what he thought was her entire criminal history into the fire unread; she'd counted on him backing down, trying to put his life with her back together, and choosing avoidance over confrontation, but Sherlock wasn't acting like a man who had viewed the drive, either, and she was confident that she'd be able to tell. In his position she'd have read it in a New York minute. Sentimental idiots, the pair of them, and more pathetic together than they were apart, because they _cared_ so much.

Still, she gave Sherlock credit for one thing: Few other men she'd met would have had the focus, the skills, and the single-minded drive to wipe out Jim's enterprise. But Sherlock had been abroad then. Without John. Every opponent had a weakness, and John Watson was Sherlock's. Threats to John focused him, it was true, but as she knew from watching him with Jim in the pool building and on the hospital roof, if he was pushed just a little bit harder, if the threat became just a little more immediate, then all of that vaunted self-possession and lofty reserve cracked, and he started making mistakes. Like meeting with her now.

ooooo

Sherlock leant forward in the chair and grimaced: Three months on the pain in his side, while improved, nevertheless persisted, frustrating him profoundly despite John's warning that it might continue far longer. The meds often, but not always, eased the pain, but they also planed away his mental edge and consequently he'd skipped his last dose. Now he wondered whether that was the wisest course, but if he ever needed to be alert and focused, it was now.

Eight cabs had passed by his post since he sent the text. A ninth turned onto the street from Park Road and as he watched it pass out of his field of view to the south his phone chimed with an incoming text. _On foot,_ his watcher reported _. Northbound on Allsop_. Quickly he dialed Mary's number.

"Mary? What are you doing?"

"Just testing a theory," she said brightly.

"What theory?"

"That you posted spies up and down the road."

"Of course I did. You're in real danger. You need to get inside so we can talk."

"But we _are_ talking, Sherlock," she said pleasantly.

"I'm trying to help you, Mary."

"That's sweet of you to worry," she said, "but I've been in what you call 'real danger' most of my life. In any case I'd rather not meet in your flat. Too many people know about it. Why don't you meet me across the road? Two thirty-six Baker Street."

"Why?"

"It's more secure. Discreet, if you like."

"Where?"

"Room seven nineteen."

He disconnected the call and bolted from the room, racing for the stairs at the north end of the hall. She believed he was in his flat and would be counting on the extra time, but if he could get upstairs before she did he'd maintain his advantage.

Almost immediately it became clear that wasn't going to happen. He hadn't tried moving this fast since before she shot him. Momentum carried him up three flights before his lungs and legs were on fire, but on the sixth floor landing he had to stop, hanging on to the railing and fighting not to pass out from the pain: Every breath he drew was a knife-thrust in his side. His head swam as he climbed the final flight and arrived on the 7th floor landing, where he sagged heavily against the wall, furiously willing himself to recover.

Angrily he wiped his sweating face on his sleeve. He couldn't face her like this and he fought to calm himself, but it took an eternity and he knew he'd lost any small advantage he might have held. At last, with his pulse still pounding but his breathing just under control, he stepped out into the hall.

He was at the north end of the building with a clear view of the entire corridor, but there was nothing to be seen. Nothing to be heard, either, except for the usual muffled sounds of the three businesses that operated from this floor. Two insurance companies and a nail salon. The door of the salon stood propped open, but the rest were closed. The far south end of the corridor ended in a glass and steel door that led to the fire escape.

All the suites on the floor were commercial, converted from residential units nine years earlier and except for the three businesses all were currently unlet, locked, and empty. Sherlock knew this because he'd been through all of them. The layout of every building within a one-mile radius of home was intimately familiar to him, just as he knew every street in London.

Midway down the corridor he passed by the lift. The lights showed the carriage passing the third floor on the way back to the ground level: As he feared, Mary had arrived first.

The door to 719 was unlocked-or, to be strictly accurate, the lock had been picked. The tampering was evident well before he reached it. Standing a little to one side of the doorway he eased the door open but didn't enter. Some of the business suites were remodeled to suit the companies using them, but 719 retained its original configuration: a large, airy main room of about seven square metres, a small kitchen to right of it, and a single bedroom with a closet and en suite bathroom to the left.

The thin layer of dust on the straw-colored wood floor revealed a line of footprints leading toward and then away from the left-hand window of the main room. Beneath the window stood a little side table with an open laptop computer and a small aluminium attache case. Other than that the room was empty. Mary not only beat him upstairs but she'd obviously anticipated the meeting.

Turning, he faced the door across the hall.

"You can come out, Mary," he said.

The door opened and she stepped into the hall, discreetly holding her Beretta down along her right thigh. "And you can go in," she replied, motioning with her head to 719.

His eyes flicked from the gun to her face. "You won't need that," he said calmly. "I'm not here to hurt you."

She smiled. "Funny you say that, because I'm here to hurt you." She eyed him approvingly. "You probably wanted to take the lift, in your condition," she said. "Not that I mind seeing you like this. I'd say it'll be months before you're back to normal-or wherever it is you started from-but your life expectancy is just a few more minutes. Go on," she added. "Take a look. I've got a great video queued up. You'll love it."

"There isn't time for this," he said with a touch of impatience.

"Oh, it won't take long," she assured him, and made a little 'go on' gesture with the gun.

She had a history of being willing to kill him, so he backed into the room, watching her warily.

"Oh, for God's sake," she sneered, "I'm not going to shoot you in the back. Where's the fun in that?"

He stopped in the center of the room but she waved him on. "The window," she said, gesturing toward the little table there. "You made good time getting here," she added in a conversational tone.

"But then I was already in the building."

She smiled, appreciative.

"Mary," he said carefully, "you're in real danger. Let me help you."

She cocked her head. "Gosh, that sounds familiar," she said. "Where have I heard it before? Oh, that's right: Just before I shot you. The first time. Magnussen's dead," she added coldly. "I don't need your help any more."

"You're wrong," he said. "You need it more than ever."

"How do you reckon?"

"I know about Irkutsk. I know why you said you'd go to prison for the rest of your life. I know who your enemies are, and I know how Magnussen found out." He frowned, then asked, "Did you really kill the dog?"

She shrugged. "I hate dogs. It doesn't matter how Magnussen found out. He knew. And now he's dead. The only people who know now are you and John, and neither of you are going to see tomorrow."

"Now you're being disappointing," he said. "It matters because he was told, and the person who told him has told the Russians. They're coming." He let that sink in for a second. "I can help you. Get you out of London, get you a new identity, and make sure they never find you."

She looked sceptical. "In exchange for...?"

"No exchange," he said. "I just want to help you."

"Then what's the catch?"

"Just one condition. You go to Canada. Serve your time. I know people who can arrange it so no one associates you with your actual crimes. You'll be safe there."

"Let me think about it. No."

"Decisive. Generally I consider that a virtue, but in this case I really think you should reconsider."

"Why's that?"

"Because unless you let me help you this will end only one way. The Russians know now, but soon all your other enemies will, as well." When she remained silent he assumed she was waiting for him to convince her. "I've given you reason to underestimate me," he continued. "I was slow, just as you said. But I also needed you to think you could manipulate me the way you manipulated John. It was important that you think that, because psychopaths have a problem. They need people they can use, but anyone they can use is by definition unworthy of their respect. You couldn't manipulate Moriarty and you respected him for it, but when you don't respect people you underestimate them."

"You should talk," she said. "Manipulating people is your job description, and 'women underestimated here' ought to be on your business card.

Sherlock just smiled. "It should be on yours, as well."

"What are you talking about?"

"Janine Hawkins," he said. "You met her when you approached Moriarty for your new identity. You befriended her because she was useful to you, but you never once noticed how she was using you."

"Because she hasn't been."

"Oh, Mary. I thought you were cleverer than that. Who do you think let me in to Magnussen's office that night?"

"She would never do that."

"If she and I were dating, she would."

Mary laughed. "You? Dating?"

"Me, using her to get access to Magnussen. Just as you did. Odd that she never mentioned our liaison to you, don't you think?"

"She'd be crazy to admit she dated you."

"That's certainly the consensus," Sherlock agreed. "But she was using me just as thoroughly as I was using her. Immediately after she buzzed me into the office the two of you staged her incapacitation and John and I walked in on it. Now, why do you suppose she let me in knowing that I'd interrupt you? Personally, I think it was for the entertainment value of making you dance. Shoot me in the head and lose all chance of your little revenge fantasy playing out, or hedge your bets with something that was probably but not necessarily lethal. Which would you choose? Your goal has always been to make me suffer for Moriarty's death, but you weren't quite ready to spring the trap yet. You couldn't risk having John learn of your involvement with Magnussen and you had to decide quickly. You settled for making him suffer through my death-again-while still leaving yourself the outside chance that I'd survive."

She shook her head. "You've got that all figured out, but I still don't believe you about Janine."

"You really should. She was the power behind James Moriarty and Charles Magnussen. The one time Moriarty stood trial for his crimes I described him as a spider at the center of a criminal web. I spent two years taking it apart, strand by strand, but you know what's interesting about spiders? The females are larger and stronger and more dangerous than the males. Janine's the spider queen at the center of a web so vast that I didn't even know I was looking at it until yesterday.

"So don't feel too badly about not seeing it yourself. Even I took my time about it, and Magnussen never did understand the role he played." He considered her. "You don't believe me. I'll give you just one example. The bonfire that Magnussen trapped John in. That was her idea. She put the thought in his head, and you know why, don't you? Her little joke. Moriarty swore that he'd 'burn my heart out,' and what a clever little double entendre the bonfire turned out to be. You knew he said that because you were listening at the pool that night, but how do you suppose Janine knew? She knew because she was even closer to him than you were. Of course Magnussen saw it only as a test case, which is how she presented it to him: Just how far would I go for John Watson? You thought Magnussen was sending the texts that night, but it was Janine. She was in the crowd acting as his eyes and ears, just as you were the eyes and ears of Moriarty for all those years."

"Magnussen called me," she said, not fully believing him. "Not Janine. He wanted to know where John would be that afternoon."

"I know," Sherlock said. "You were the only possible source of that information. John hadn't been home for months. No one knew he was going to be in Baker Street that day. He didn't even know it himself until the last moment. Probably argued with himself all day long whether to come and apologize to me for being a stubborn arse. Magnussen sent his goons, but Janine put the whole thing into motion. I'm amazed you and Magnussen didn't figure it out," he added, "as closely as you both worked with her. But the clues were all there, if you'd bothered to look."

"What clues?"

"Why would any woman stay employed by a sadistic animal like him? A lowly PA didn't have power and influence he could exploit, so what hold could he have on her? The CMNews dental plan? No sane, normal woman would tolerate an employer like that-unless she wanted something from him. What she wanted was to use his power and money for her own enterprise-and she did, for years, without him even guessing-but when the countess's campaign against him hit the company's stock price, and when he refused to step down and it threatened to destroy the entire company, he became more of a liability than an asset and she killed him. Now I'm her asset, and that means you have to go."

"Are you seriously trying to tell me that Janine the PA's been running that whole company? She's an idiot."

Sherlock laughed, infuriating her. "Magnussen beat me, Mary. Completely and thoroughly beat me. He was a step ahead of me at every turn, and the night John and I went to Appledore he destroyed everything I thought I knew about myself. But Janine spent seven years as his PA and he never once suspected her real role in his organization. She subverted his security detail, used proxies on the board to exert her influence unseen, and when he started costing the company a lot of money she killed him. In a really interesting way, too. 'Idiot' is not the word I'd use."

Now it was her turn to laugh. "Janine Hawkins killed Charles Magnussen. Seriously, Sherlock, you should be the one writing the blog, with a flair for storytelling like that."

"It's true. And with Magnussen dead I became her only remaining leverage over my brother and it's now in her interest to keep me alive. She knows your commitment to killing me and she whistled for the bratva. The problem of Mary Watson goes away and her hands stay clean. True confession," he added, holding up his hand in an 'I swear' gesture. "With the information I had when Magnussen died, I did not anticipate that result. If I had...well, I would have talked John out of that whole scheme."

"John."

"It was his idea to approach Magnussen's victims and call his bluff. And it worked a bit better than we'd hoped. I know you think he's stupid, Mary, and to be honest that makes me wonder just how perceptive you really are. Oh, he doesn't give an instant impression of brilliance, I grant you, but you lived with him for over a year. You must have seen it."

"Considering his infatuation with you, I'd say 'no,'" she replied dryly. "How do you know she killed Magnussen?"

"Fountain pen."

"What?"

"The documents Magnussen was working on when he died were signed with a fountain pen. In the drawer of his desk were spare cartridges for that pen, and on the middle finger of his right hand was a tiny speck of ink-the same sort of ink that was in the cartridges. But there was no fountain pen in the office and the pen found next to the body was a rollerball."

"So?"

"So Magnussen had the nasty habit of occasionally nibbling on his pens. The fountain pen he'd been using was smeared with batrachotoxin, one of the deadliest poisons in the world. Janine couldn't risk the pen being found by the criminalist, so she exchanged it for the only other sort that was in the drawer: the rollerball."

Using his right hand he drew his coat a little to the side, showing her that he wasn't reaching for anything dangerous, then reached in with his left and drew a fountain pen from the right breast pocket of his coat.

"Recognize it?" he asked, holding it up for her to see, and her expression told him that she did. "You took a pen very like this one from Nicholas Andrews in the car park of the Crick Institute after you shot him in the back of the head. Janine gave you that assignment, but she presented the job as something Magnussen was 'requesting,' didn't she?

"It's why you kept that LineToo account, so you could arrange the jobs in secrecy. She commissioned a lot of little jobs like that over the years, each time telling you it was on her boss's orders-and of course considering the power he held over you, you were in no position to refuse. Maybe you even enjoyed it. Got you out of the house once in a while, kept the old skill set sharp." He shook his head. "All her doing, Mary. Magnussen didn't have the first clue about any of it."

She sighed impatiently. "Sherlock, you're confusing me with my husband. I haven't got all day to swoon over you while you grandstand. Tell me how you know she killed him."

"I told Janine that the police believed her boss had been poisoned and that they were putting together a team to search the offices for traces of the toxin, which, I said, they thought might be a contact poison of some sort, possibly introduced on his pen. Complete lie, of course; the police haven't the first idea what killed Magnussen and never will. But it was enough to flush her out. She retrieved the pen from where she'd temporarily hidden it, walked outside, and dropped it into the nearest bin as she passed. Trash removal: a completely innocent behaviour committed by thousands of people in the city every day, but Mycroft's people were watching her. Of course it was entirely possible that she'd thrown the pen in the river immediately after the murder, in which case that little scheme wouldn't have worked, but as it happens I was right."

"Janine killed Magnussen."

"She played you, Mary, like she played everyone. You knew her as some woman who worked for Moriarty and later Magnussen. Befriended her because you could use her, but you never suspected who she really was."

"Who was she really, then?"

"James Moriarty's sister."

She burst out laughing. "Oh, Sherlock. That's really the sort of thing you should save for poor credulous John."

"I ran the DNA test myself."

She considered him coldly, apparently neither stunned nor worried. Just calculating. Finally she tossed her head in an impatient gesture. "Doesn't matter. Blood doesn't make a family."

"That wedding telegram from 'CAM,'" Sherlock said. "'So sorry your family couldn't be here to see this.' Magnussen was taunting you because he knew you considered Moriarty your family. Stung to have that read by the man you blamed for his death, didn't it?"

"Yeah. Jim was my family," she admitted. "Like John is yours. You see how this works?"

"Mary, I understand what's motivating you. Truly, I do. Is revenge really worth dying for?"

"You tell me. You're the one who's about to die for it."

"Neither of us has to. Let me help you."

"By offering me life in a Canadian prison? You think that's going to protect me from the Russians?"

"You'd have a new identity, one created and backed by the government."

She laughed. "And your brother wouldn't have a thing to do with arranging that, would he?"

"Of course."

"You really are much thicker than John leads people to believe," she sneered. "You know what Jim called him, don't you?"

"Iceman. Yes, I've heard."

"And that doesn't suggest to you a little flaw in your plan? That he might just accidentally leave a teensy little hole in the new ID he prepares for the woman who nearly killed his little brother?"

"He gave me his word."

"Why would he do that?"

"Because I asked him to."

"Why?"

"Because if the Russians find you when you're with John they won't spare him just because he didn't murder nine people in Irkutsk."

"Oh, God!" she cried with a bitter laugh, "it's always about John Watson for you, isn't it?"

"He doesn't want you dead, Mary. Neither do I. Neither does Mycroft." Frowned. "I'm fairly certain about that last one."

"I'm not going to prison, Sherlock. I'll take my chances with the bratva, but you won't be around to see the outcome because I've invested far too much time finishing Jim's work."

"The outcome is that they'll kill you."

"People in this business don't expect to tap their pensions," she said. "I haven't made any long-term plans past today, because today's the day you watch your friend die just like I watched mine."

"That's not going to happen."

"Let me tell you what I learned about John Watson over the last eighteen months," she said. "He thinks you walk on water."

"He knows I don't."

"No. _I_ know you don't. And here's Exhibit A: You're here and he's there." She nodded at the window to indicate 221.

"John's at work," Sherlock said.

"I thought you'd say that. Wake that computer up, would you?"

He eyed her warily, but tapped the keyboard and a live surveillance image of his living room appeared. From the angle it was clear that the camera was concealed in the buffalo skull to take in the entire main room. While distorted by the fisheye lens, the image showed John sitting in his armchair, tapping his foot and clearly annoyed because he'd been left waiting.

Sherlock went white. "John," he whispered, then looked at her, his expression wild.

She laughed delightedly. "Oh, that's perfect," she cried. "That's _exactly_ what I was looking for. That shot of adrenaline that makes your heart feel like it's going to pound its way out of your chest? Makes it hard to breathe? Just wait, it'll get better. I told him you'd phoned and needed his help. Told him you said it was urgent. It's like throwing a stick for one of those retriever dogs. They'll run after it over and over until their hearts explode and still die happy. His cab got here just a few minutes ago."

She was smiling now, relaxed because she was steering events back where she wanted them to go and because he was reacting the way she'd hoped. "Jim had contacts, of course," she said lightly. "He knew people, so naturally I met people, too. People with useful skills like, oh, what's a good example? Setting fires. Doesn't take much in these old buildings if you know where to apply the charges. That flat of yours? The one where your dearest friend is sitting waiting for you? Hah-what am I saying? Your only friend. It's been mined with remote-operated charges for weeks now."

Sherlock started toward her and she snapped the gun up. "Before you take another step I can put three between your eyes," she said, her voice cold. "You're going to watch him burn, Sherlock, the way Jim intended. I'd like it to be in person, but real time is the next best thing, and I can't risk you doing something boring like saving him."

ooooo

John tapped his foot in irritation, then got up to pace the flat. According to Mary, Sherlock wanted John to meet him here and no doubt he'd show up eventually, but John just fobbed his last three patients of the day on to Dr. Simpson, and the idea of owing that battleaxe a favour was obnoxious in the extreme. He reached for his phone and dialed Sherlock's number. "'Urgent,' my arse," he muttered.

 _The Vodafone customer you're trying to reach is unavailable_ , he heard, and glanced at the phone in surprise. Ruddy thing _said_ it had three bars, so what was the problem? "Bloody network," he growled. Disconnecting and redialing produced the same result. The landline didn't give him an annoying recording, but it didn't put the call through, either. It just rang repeatedly without even going to voicemail. "Dammit." Not much point in trying a text, he supposed, but he did it anyway: _Where are you? I wasn't busy or anything_. _J_

Bloody typical, all of it: Sherlock's insufferable confidence that John would drop everything when he called; the fact that he did in fact drop everything when Sherlock called; and Sherlock subsequently leaving him sitting around without a clue, as usual. It was a toss-up which was most annoying.

He threw himself onto the sofa with a sigh, picked an old copy of the BMJ from the coffee table, and tried to leaf through it but quickly abandoned the project as pointless. Tapped his foot, glared at Sherlock's chair. After three more interminable minutes he swore again, got up, and went to the refrigerator: If the great prat had anything edible in it was his now. Partial compensation for the aggravating presumption.

ooooo

"Mary," Sherlock said, "you hate me. Get in line. But John didn't have anything to do with Moriarty's death. You know that. Let him go."

"It's sweet that you're trying to bargain for his life."

"I'm trying to reason with you."

"It's not just that I want to kill you, Sherlock. It's how I want to kill you. John's the key to that. He stays in play. Besides, he likes this sort of thing, too. You said it yourself. He's an adrenaline junkie, just like the two of us. Everyone should die doing what they like, don't you think?"

"No. He's not. You heard what you wanted to hear that night, just as you have since."

"Of course he is."

He shook his head. "He asked you what he'd done to deserve you. Do you remember what I told him?"

"Remind me. Unlike John I don't hang on your every word."

"Everything. Everything he's ever done is what he did to deserve you. He was a trauma surgeon, an army doctor, the sort of man who runs toward the danger-not because he's addicted to it or to dangerous people, but because that's where he can help. I've met as few people as possible in my life, Mary, but over time they add up. John's the only one I ever called a friend. Everything he is, is what he had to be before I could say that. You had to rely on his virtue just to get him here: 'Sherlock needs your help.' You targeted him because he matters to me, and he matters to me because he's _good_. I'd be dead without him. Everything he's ever done is what he did to deserve your hate."

She frowned at him. "If this is supposed to give me second thoughts I have to tell you it's not working. Lovely eulogy, though, and you'll be pleased to know that the feeling's mutual. You should have seen him, Sherlock. A year after he thought you died, and still it was all tears and moaning." She clapped the back of her hand to her forehead in a mock swoon. "'The best man I ever knew.' Ugh. Do you know how hard it was to sit there without smacking him, knowing the whole time that you were busy destroying everything Jim built?

She glanced at the computer screen. "Oh, look at that," she said. "He's trying to make a call. Probably to you, to find out why you're making him stand around for no reason again."

The angle wasn't great and the distortion of the fisheye lens didn't help, but Sherlock was morally certain that she was right, and that John was dialing his number. Yet his phone didn't ring.

As if she guessed his thoughts Mary reached into her pocket and withdrew a black device the size of a cigarette pack. "Oh, and I should tell you," she said casually, "I'm jamming your mobile signal. In case you were thinking of dialing emergency services or something." She cocked her head at the image on the screen. "He seems kinda peeved, wouldn't you say? Well, he won't be waiting for you for too much longer." She dropped the jammer back into her pocket and held up a device like a small walkie-talkie. "Because I also brought this. A remote detonator," she explained. "The audio on that computer's set so you'll be able to hear him once the fire really takes off. Which should be, you know: immediately."

"You're a monster," he snarled.

"I'm offended," she said with feigned distress. "Here I was, about to offer you a way out." She nodded to indicate the table near the window, where the laptop stood. "In the case. Open it."

With another suspicious glance at her he opened the box. Inside lay a forty calibre Sig Sauer P-226. Beside it in the case was the magazine. He looked back at her for an explanation.

"There's just the one round in the magazine," she said. "You can put a bullet through your brain and make it all stop. Use it whenever you like. Now, before John starts screaming. After. I'm not picky. But you will use it."

"If I don't?"

"If you don't..." She shrugged and gestured with her own pistol. "You got off Bart's roof alive because I had orders, Sherlock, but you're going to leave this room in a zippered bag."

"What if I use it on you?"

"You can try," she said, greatly amused, "if you think you can reach for it, seat the magazine, chamber the round, and point it at me faster than I can pull this trigger. Besides: You're no killer. All these months and you never even tried the obvious solution: Kill Magnussen yourself. So tough. So ruthless. So pathetic."

"Mary, you're not thinking clearly about this," Sherlock said urgently. "Janine needs me alive and you know what she's capable of now, but if you stop this I can still help you."

"And yet I don't want your help. Isn't that odd? Besides, Janine doesn't care what happens to John. But you do. Well," she added brightly, "this has been better than foreplay. You'll have to trust me on that one. Pick up the gun, Sherlock. You're going to need it."

She pressed the button on the detonator.

ooooo

The fact that Sherlock had not yet consented to make an appearance still annoyed John as he stood spooning Chinese leftovers into a bowl, but the food's provenance-the Plum Garden restaurant-reminded him of their first case together and he smiled in spite of himself. Sherlock sometimes exercised his unconventional sense of humour by carelessly delivering remarks that made John laugh as much for their quality of being unexpected as for being in the strictest sense funny, and his deadpan advice when after that first case they went for Chinese was a good example: _Try the pork flied lice_ , he'd said. Over time John realized that those little quips were proof not just of high spirits but of contentment and, in a way, intimacy: He'd never heard Sherlock produce them for anyone else.

John shook his head-and an instant later he was curled on the floor against the cabinets, his arms covering his head, dazed and deafened, his body having taken command and moved faster than his conscious mind could follow. It had happened to him before, but the phenomenon always surprised him. The word _bomb_ flashed through his brain in the time it took him to open his eyes. Both exits to the landing were blocked and sheets of flame engulfed the windows.

ooooo

It went exactly as she knew it would: He was completely out of options and nearly out of control: frantic, breathing hard, teeth bared in a feral snarl of rage and despair. Although his reluctance was evident he'd picked up the gun and seated the magazine, and while he'd not chambered the round he was obviously warring with himself over whether to risk shooting her-because he knew that she'd shoot him if he tried. She knew he didn't care for his own sake, but because it would put an end to even the theoretical chance, however remote, that he could save John. What he did next, however, surprised her.

" _Fire!_ " he roared. " _Fire!_ Call nine-nine-nine!" Instinctively she leveled her gun at him, but it was instantly apparent that if she shot him now she'd have to start a lot more killing than she had bullets for: Doors began opening in the hallway and people were looking out. Sherlock continued to yell, and she struggled to keep an eye on him while sorting out the situation with the tenants. She shifted the gun to her left hand so it wouldn't be visible to them, kept it aimed at him in case he changed his mind about shooting her, and leant back, peering around the jamb at the office workers.

"I'm sorry!" she called with a friendly wave. "Sorry! It's just a joke. A bad one. Really. Estate agent. Got a client here who likes to mess about. I'm so sorry." Even as she was speaking the shouting stopped, and when she looked back into the room Sherlock and the gun were gone.

ooooo

Sherlock knew every street in London and he was intimately familiar with the rooftops, ingresses, and egresses of every building within a one mile radius of home. More than once he'd used these routes to evade detection by criminals and the police alike. The layout of Chalfont Court was no less familiar to him. Each of the top floor suites contained a closet with a metal roof access ladder bolted to the wall below a panel set into the ceiling and opening onto the roof. That was where he needed to go, as quickly and as quietly as possible. He'd closed and locked the bedroom door behind him, of course, but it wouldn't take Mary long to get through once she'd handled the tenants.

Standing on the ladder, he threw the simple bolt and gave the panel a shove-but to his horror the heavy metal door didn't shift. The last time he went through one of these hatches it was a simple thing, but his strength wasn't what it was then. Each time he strained against the panel the pain hit him like a hammer while the panel scarcely moved. He stepped higher on the ladder, turned to put his back to the wall, bent double, and pushed with his shoulders, letting his legs do the work. Starbursts coruscated behind his closed eyelids and he was terrified that he was going to pass out, but he just pushed harder, quickly running out of air and strength-but suddenly the panel yielded. He stepped up to the next rung, groaning with the effort, and slowly, far too slowly, pushed the hatch open. As it passed vertical it suddenly fell open with a great clang.

He scrambled through the opening onto the roof and raced for the edge of the building, for the fire escape that would take him to the alley, but there again his body betrayed him. His intention was to swing himself over the edge of the roof and make a controlled descent to the fire escape landing below, but as he hung by his fingers from the roof the pain made him cry out and in spite of himself he let go, landing on his feet, fortunately, but only just, and he was noisy. Mary would have heard it. He didn't bother ducking as he went by the door that led from the corridor to the landing, and plunged down the stairs.

Before he reached the next landing the door above him opened with a crash, followed by the snap of her pistol as she fired at him, a strangely subdued sound outdoors, not the sonic boom of Hollywood's imagination. The bullet struck the metal somewhere behind him: She might be a dead shot but lead wouldn't penetrate steel. If he could keep the right interval between them he might make it to the alley alive. After that, well... _You can stand up or you can curl into a ball but the fire finds both kinds of people and you don't have a choice about that. The only thing you get to decide is what you're going to be doing if it finds you._ Sherlock Holmes would be running for John Watson's life.

"I'm coming," he said.

ooooo

"Time to go, Watson," John said to himself, and since he was already on the kitchen floor he reached under the sink and ripped the fire extinguisher from its bracket; the equipment was de rigueur when one's flatmate liked his science 'interesting.' Grabbed the hand towel from the rack-no time to wet it-and clapped it over his nose and mouth. Curtains of black smoke rolled up the walls, hitting the ceiling, billowing out, and cascading down: microbursts in reverse. In seconds it would reduce the visibility to zero and already his eyes burned from the toxic fumes being released. Cyanide gas, among other things.

Crouching low to remain in the cooler air he hurried toward the north living room window. Already the temperature had shot up and the word 'flashover' crossed his mind: Would that happen before or after it got hot enough to kill him? On his way to the window he stopped to grab the poker from the hearth, but he couldn't carry it and the fire bottle and keep the cloth over his face, too. He could hold his breath for maybe a minute, probably less, while he fought to get out, but the first unprotected breath he took would be his last. The super-heated air would sear his trachea, his lungs, and then it would be over: The heat, smoke, or fumes-or all three-would kill him. He took a deep breath and dropped the cloth.

Beneath the window flames streamed from the gaping hole where the power outlet used to be, flaring up well past the sill. He pulled the pin from the extinguisher, squeezed the trigger, and in the respite that granted him swung the poker back-handed and smashed the window. Another shot of halon, but he couldn't clear the glass and glazing bars from the frame as well as he would have liked because he had to breathe and he had to do it now. He held the trigger depressed as long as he could but he was desperate to get out and soon dropped the bottle. Heedless of the glass slicing his hands and the splintered wood scraping his back he scrambled out onto the tiny decorative ledge, and after his first grateful breath of the cold fresh air he had time to be surprised that the ledge held up to his weight. Hoping the rail did the same-it did-he lowered himself until he was hanging above the pavement, then let go, hitting the concrete in a crouch. At once he sprang up and raced back into the building.

In the foyer the smoke and heat were less than they'd been upstairs, but that wouldn't be the case for long. Without slowing he raced straight through to Mrs. Hudson's flat.

So little time had passed since the explosions that she was still standing shocked in the middle of her living room, looking ludicrous with her eyes wide and one hand clapped over her mouth. His appearance must not have inspired confidence, though, because she screamed when she saw him. Without pausing he caught her by the arm and she squawked in protest, but he pulled her along with him, leaving bloody handprints on her sleeve, out the back door to the alley and snapping orders as they went. "Call Fire and Rescue," he said. "Go to Mrs. Turner's. Get as many people out of her building as you can. _Hurry!_ "

Back inside he caught up the extinguisher from her kitchen, intending to attack the blaze on the staircase, but the fire had spread too far for the single extinguisher to be very effective, and in any case the dense black smoke was filling the foyer too quickly, so he dropped the bottle and staggered out the front door, then stood coughing on the pavement, doubled over with his hands on his knees, his eyes watering, and the acrid taste of smoke in his mouth. Already he could hear sirens approaching.

As he straightened to track their progress by ear the unmistakable pop of a pistol reached him and he instinctively dropped into a crouch, glancing about to locate the source. Movement in the alley across the street: He brushed at his watering eyes, but he couldn't fail to recognize the billowing greatcoat and the tall, slim figure it enveloped: Sherlock racing down the fire escape of the Chalfont Court building. Above him on the stairs a flash of red coat-blond hair-Mary. "The hell?" he muttered, and then she raised her arm, pointing at Sherlock, and there was another pop. Then he was running, not conscious of having crossed the road, springing for the gate stretched across the entrance to the alley.

" _Sherlock!_ "

ooooo

Relief-John was alive-followed instantly by dread: Everything Sherlock had tried so hard to avoid was bearing down on him now with nightmare inevitability. "Stay back, John!" he yelled fiercely, knowing it was futile. John would keep coming because that was what John did. With a clash of metal he hit the alley gate at a dead run, grabbed the top bar, and swung himself over.

Now it was Appledore again: the same abyss yawning under Sherlock's feet and no way to stop his fall. None of this was supposed to happen. He'd not wanted John here, he'd not wanted Mary to defy him, and no matter how this ended he was afraid that one of them was going to die. But it was not going to be John. He drew the pistol from his pocket and stepped out from behind the intervening scaffolding, facing Mary squarely and giving her a clear shot at him. It was a simple calculation: John would be her goal now; she'd get to Sherlock in good time, but right now it was John she was after and John he was going to protect with all the time he had left. "Stay _back,_ John! _"_ he yelled again, not daring to turn around.

John paused where he did not because Sherlock told him to but because there was nowhere else for him to go. Not three metres in front of him the alley surface ended. It was at least a four metre drop from the edge of the pavement to the train tracks below, where the Baker Street trains dove under the Chalfont building. He was fully aware of the untenable nature of his position in the narrow alley, scarcely wider than the fire escape itself, with no cover available-the classic 'fatal funnel' so execrated by tacticians-unarmed, and with no clear idea of why Mary was shooting at Sherlock, nor caring, knowing only that somehow he had to make her stop.

"Mary, for Christ's sake, what are you doing?" he cried.

She had her pistol up, trying to aim around Sherlock so she could target John, and there was only so much real estate Sherlock could use to stay in front of her and prevent that, but when she snapped impatiently, "Get out of the way," he knew it was working.

"Mary, stop this," he said, gripping the gun but not raising it because he didn't want to shoot her and he didn't want to get shot. "Let me help you."

"Dammit, Sherlock," John cried, "use the gun!"

"You said I wasn't supposed to kill people!"

"That doesn't apply if they're shooting at you!"

"There's only one round," Sherlock noted, and added under his breath, "and make up your mind."

"Then use it!" John yelled, but Sherlock hesitated and John had rarely felt so helpless. "Mary, God, _stop_ it!"

"But John," she said sweetly, "this is what you like. Tell me this isn't more fun than driving a Volvo."

"Throw it down, Sherlock!"

"I can't!"

"Why the hell not?"

"Don't you get it?" Mary said, still in that same light, careless tone. "He's not the target. You are. As long as he's between us, you're safe. Well, 'safe' in this situation is relative, of course. If he gives you the gun you'll expose yourself to my fire. He doesn't want that-but I do. Husbands are supposed to give their wives what they want, you know."

John didn't understand why she was doing any of this and just then he couldn't afford to care, but whatever she said about her priorities Sherlock seemed to believe. John did not. "Sherlock," he said, and there was a diamond-hard edge to his voice that neither his wife nor his best friend had ever heard before. "There are two of us in this."

Sherlock swallowed. "Yes."

"Did you chamber the round?"

"No."

"Drop it."

And Sherlock did.

John caught the gun, racked it as he slid one step to his right, lining up his shot as she did the same, as the barrel of her gun swung away from Sherlock, and the Sig's deep voice was followed so closely by the crack of her Beretta that the sounds merged into one. John took a half step back and Mary made a quiet 'oof' noise and hunched forward, dropping her gun; it clattered to the asphalt below. Behind her a crater the size of a tea plate appeared in the brick wall, followed instantly by the sharp report of a rifle. John dropped the now-useless Sig, scooped up the Beretta, and darted against the south alley wall in a crouch. A moment later Sherlock joined him.

"The hell's going on, Sherlock?" John gasped.

"Sniper," Sherlock said. "Russians. Across the street, probably in the old bell tower on the two-nineteen building. He doesn't have the angle now. We have a little more time, but not much." He raised his voice so Mary could hear. "It's _over_ , Mary," he called. "They're here."

She'd already gone over the railing to the alley level, not bothering to pinpoint the source of the sniper round, and as he called to her she peered down at the tracks: Too far to jump, but she swung herself over the rim and clambered down using the conduits that lined the brick wall of the rail passage. As she landed in the rail bed she went to her knees. Blood was quickly soaking her shirt. She was well-sheltered from the sniper, however, so far below the alley level and in the lee of the buildings, so she pushed herself up slowly and stood, not entirely steady, and gazed smiling up at them.

"You surprised me," she said breathlessly to John. "Thanks for that. So fast-and I really thought you'd hesitate. Honestly, I did."

"Mary, you're hurt," he called down. "Whatever this is about we can fix it later. Just let me help you now."

Her face twisted into a sneer of contempt. "'Whatever it's about'? Didn't you tell him, Sherlock?"

"I don't _care!_ " John cried. "Just stop this."

She looked from him to Sherlock, smiled, and said, "You were right about him, you know. Watch this." Her determined expression softened as her eyes met John's again. "Save me, then," she said. "That's what you do, isn't it?" She looked down at herself, then back at him and said plaintively, "Help me."

John started forward at once but Sherlock caught his arm. "No!"

"Sherlock!" John cried, outraged, and struggled to wrench himself away. "She's-"

" _No!_ " Sherlock said fiercely. "The rail. The second you touch her she'll make contact. She'll kill herself to kill you."

John stared at him, saw the truth in his eyes, then looked at Mary. There was truth in hers, too. Maybe for the first time since he'd known her. He couldn't think of anything else to say except a hopeless, baffled, "Why?"

"Because I owed him," she snarled.

"Owed...? For what? What are you talking about?"

"He killed Jim."

"Jim?" The given name meant nothing to him in that context.

"Moriarty," Sherlock said.

John couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Moriarty committed suicide!"

"Technically," she said. "But your big hero forced him into it. You were there in the pool building. You heard what Jim said. 'I'll burn your heart out.' That's you, in case you haven't been paying attention."

John couldn't process that much evil. "God, Mary, let it go. _Please_ ," he said. "Let me help you."

"Get off the tracks, Mary," Sherlock said.

"Do it," John said urgently, still straining against Sherlock's hand on his arm. "Get off the tracks and I can help you. _Hurry_."

"It's _over_ , John," she snapped. "Mission accomplished. Now I just want to savor this."

"Savor...?" he said helplessly. "What are you talking about?"

With a knowing, confident expression she knelt down among the cinders and drew the palm of her hand over her bloody shirt, then held it out over the rail. Her eyes met John's. "See you in your dreams," she said, and reached for the steel.

"No!" he screamed, plunging forward, but Sherlock stepped in front of him, taking the shock with a grunt of pain. John fought to evade him but a wave of light-headedness swamped him and there was an odd sort of watery looseness in his limbs. He tried to straighten and then the pain hit him and his knees went like the tendons had been cut. Sherlock's strong arms caught him, eased him down, and he curled onto his side with an agonised groan.

"John? John!" Sherlock cried. "What's wrong? _What's wrong?_ "

The pain took John's breath away and he couldn't answer at once, but after the worst passed he checked himself: fumbled with his shirt, lifted it, found the little entrance wound, just above the leather of his belt. Virtually no blood, which explained the pain. The hemorrhaging was internal. "Shit," he muttered.

"God, John, you're hit. You're shot. She shot you. Tell me what to do. Tell me how to help! John!"

"Not much..." John gasped, squeezing his eyes closed against the pain. "Bleeding's internal...surgery's..." He broke off, groaning, and at one remove he was aware of Sherlock calling emergency services, snapping out orders on how to reach the alley, but he devoted most of his attention to keeping his breathing shallow and the pain at bay. It wasn't working.

"They're on the way," Sherlock said. "Tell me how to help you."

The pain made it nearly impossible to focus or think clearly, but John's answer was automatic. "Look for...an exit wound."

"Of course...Right...Okay...Uh...Yes."

"Bleeding?"

"Yes."

"'kay," John said. "Direct pressure."

But when Sherlock whipped the scarf from his neck and pressed it against John's back he writhed away from the pain with a gasp. Sherlock started back, appalled, but John caught his wrist. "Don't let go."

"It's hurting you!" Sherlock cried, beyond distressed.

"It will do," John ground out. "Go on." Gingerly Sherlock tried again and John did his best not to react-it was just upsetting Sherlock-but in spite of himself tears seeped from behind his closed lids. "Sherlock."

"Yes?"

"I don't...Why was she here? Why did she..."

"It doesn't matter now," Sherlock said, his voice hoarse. "What else? There must be something else I can do."

John shook his head. "EMTs."

"They're across the road with the fire," Sherlock said angrily. "Should have been here by now. I told them how to get out here using Chalfont. Why must I do everyone's thinking for them?"

"You're...cleverer," John said. Sherlock liked to be flattered about that. "What'd she mean...'Right about him'?"

"Hm?"

"You heard me."

"Nothing. It doesn't matter."

"Sherlock."

"I, uh...I told her nothing she did would have worked-her plan-if...if you weren't what you are."

"Great," John said. "Always...always my fault. What am I?"

"A good man."

If he'd not already known how much it would hurt he'd have laughed at that. "That _a_ truth?"

" _The_ truth," Sherlock said. "Of course, it takes one to know one."

"Knew you were gonna say that."

"No, you didn't."

"Did."

"She had to rely on your virtue, John. As do I."

"Scarf's ruined," John said. "Sorry."

When Sherlock didn't answer John opened his eyes and looked up into his white, anguished face; he was shaking badly. John squeezed his hand tighter but when he spoke his voice was little more than a whisper. "It's okay, mate. It is. Trust your doctor."

Sherlock's eyes filled. "Don't."

"Tell...EMTs-"

"You tell them."

"Permissive...hypo..." Dammit, he couldn't do it. In the distance Sherlock was shouting at him, frantic, but fainter and fainter with each iteration of his name as a loud ringing filled his ears and the grey fog creeping in at the edges of his vision segued to an impenetrable black.


	18. Chapter 18

**Friday, 16 January 2015**

The same annoying buzz woke him but it was fading, fading, replaced gradually by someone calling his name.

"Dr. Watson. Dr. Watson, can you hear me? Come on, love. Time to wake up."

Now his hand was being patted. Irritating. His eyes felt sticky, dry and burning behind their closed lids. His tongue was stuck, too, to the roof of his mouth, and he'd never been so exhausted in his life. Waking up was the last thing he wanted to do, and he tried to retreat back into the velvety soft darkness.

More hand patting, more insistent. "Open your eyes, Dr. Watson. We're not going to let you alone until you do, so you might as well get it over with."

"John." Sherlock's intimately familiar voice, taut with worry. "Please."

Finally he managed it. He squinted at the light, then blinked a few times until he resolved the broad, friendly face of a grey-haired nurse. That explained the hand-patting. Did he fall asleep during rounds? Christ, that was embarrassing.

"Look who's here," she said, pointing across the bed to indicate Sherlock, who was watching him anxiously and looking perfectly awful. His suit coat was thrown over the back of his chair, his shirttail was half untucked, his sleeves rolled up. The pupils of his red-rimmed eyes were dilated with emotion but he brightened when John's eyes met his.

"I'm Sharon," the nurse said cheerfully, giving his bandaged hand one last gentle squeeze before she let go and busied herself with the PCA pump. "You're in the PACU. Dr. Bramlage said your surgery went very well. Flying colours, and all that. Says he's met you before, from when your brother was in hospital a few months ago. There's your small world for you. How are you feeling, love? Any pain?"

He had to think about that for a second. "No," he decided, his voice a hoarse whisper.

"No, I should think not," she said with satisfaction, re-securing the loop of supplemental oxygen line behind his left ear with the casual, competent manner of a professional who'd done the same thing thousands of times. "We can't let you have anything to drink yet, but I'll be back in a bit with some ice chips. Your brother can help you with that. " She smiled, gave his foot a pat as she went by, and disappeared.

John looked at Sherlock. "'Brother'?" he said. His throat was dry as hell.

Sherlock shrugged. "They wouldn't let me stay until I said I was family."

"They blind?"

"Just unobservant."

"I'm far better-looking than you."

That had the desired effect of making Sherlock smile, but then John peered more closely at him, frowning. "You okay?"

"Of course. Just been-"

"You're bleeding."

Sherlock glanced down at himself. John's blood. From yesterday. "I-No. No, it's...fine."

On the chair next to him Sherlock's computer stood open to a familiar page. "That my blog?"

"Hm? Oh. Erm, yes. Your greatly-exaggerated story of how we met. Just, you know: reviewing. Makes me feel so much cleverer."

"Touch and go, then?"

"Of course not. It's merely an improvement over three year-old issues of _Car_."

John smiled and closed his eyes. Sherlock silently watched him, his eyes never leaving John's face. For the first time in hours he permitted himself a sliver of optimism, optimism he'd fiercely rejected when it was offered by his brother, Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, even the surgeon. But now John was awake. John, the one person whose word he was willing to take on that or any other subject.

For as long as he could remember, Sherlock Holmes had passionately sought to learn, to know, to understand. Both the pursuit and attainment of understanding almost invariably brought him unalloyed pleasure-until he knelt helplessly in an alley holding John's hand as he bled out. Although he had apologized more than once for the emotional wreckage he created by faking his death and while he meant it sincerely at least that many times, the implications were never fully real to him until he felt the hands of the paramedics pulling him away from John, until he stood there as they worked, powerless to help, irrelevant, unable even to tell John that he knew and that he was sorry, that finally he _understood_ the scale of the grief and anguish he had caused, because by then John could no longer hear him and might never hear him again.

More than anything he wanted John to hear what he had to say now. "John," he began, and when John's dark eyes were focused on him he said, "I'm sorry. About all of it. Barts. Appledore. Yesterday. It wasn't supposed to be like that. I never meant to...It wasn't supposed to hurt you again. _I_ wasn't-" His throat closed and he faltered and stopped, looking down and blinking rapidly.

John didn't have the energy to answer and he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer, but he edged his hand toward Sherlock, turned it palm up. Sherlock hesitated, then took John's hand in his. He felt the slight answering pressure that absolved him, and then John drifted away again.


	19. Chapter 19

**Monday, 19 January 2015**

Even new hospitals typically weren't designed to prioritize the scenery visible from patient rooms, and certainly elderly central London hospitals were not, so his view of the gravel rooftop of the building's older section next door and two stories below was in no way a disappointment to John, whose expectations were so modest. Sitting sideways to the window now, his right elbow on the cold ledge, he watched the steam curl in wisps from the roof vents. It snowed last night and while much of what accumulated melted during the afternoon, little lavender-coloured drifts lingered in the roof's lee corners, re-freezing in the twilight. The view suggested a chill that he didn't actually feel, but he adjusted the blanket around his shoulders all the same, clutching it closer.

"So," he said by way of introducing questions that had been puzzling him, and Sherlock, in the vinyl and chrome chair on the far side of the bed, looked up from his computer. "Moriarty's sister."

"Mm. I ran the DNA test myself."

"And she and Mary were working together?"

Sherlock made his pedant face. "Not that Mary was aware. Janine occasionally contacted her with jobs using the LineToo app for secrecy, but as far as Mary knew she was relaying requests from Magnussen. That kept Janine in the clear-just a lowly PA acting as a messenger-but let her use Magnussen's leverage against Mary for her own purposes. The key was Nicholas Andrews."

"The frog guy."

"Yes. His widow very kindly allowed me to examine his mobile. It contained the LineToo app as well, and its history included calls to and from Janine. In particular, two calls the day prior to his Crick visit, but none after."

"Because he was murdered before he could report a job well done?"

"Exactly."

"Did Mary kill him?"

"I believe so. According to the history on her account she also received a call from Janine two days prior to the murder. The evening Andrews died she made an outgoing call, probably reporting the completion of the job. Once I had that correlation it was fairly easy to go back through the call history and match the dates and her MO with other unsolved murders."

"Janine was behind that video clip of Moriarty. That 'miss me' thing?"

"Yes. You remember it appeared the very morning that Magnussen was murdered. Her way of announcing her arrival on the scene. Well, I say arrival. She'd been running the Moriarty empire for nearly a decade and Magnussen's for almost as long. Killing him was more like a-"

"Mafia initiation rite?"

"I was going to say 'coming out party,' but the cynicism works, too."

"How'd you realize she was behind it all?"

"All the things she never did," Sherlock said.

"Meaning?"

"She never quit working for Magnussen. Any normal woman would have not only quit but sued him for harassment, creating a hostile working environment, assault-"

"Being a turd."

"Technically not actionable, but yes. When she came to see me in hospital she never asked who shot me, because she already knew. She never asked who attacked her that night because she knew: She let Mary into the office just before she let us in, and letting Mary knock her out was how she concealed her complicity from Magnussen. She never told Mary that she and I were 'dating' because she had her on a need-to-know basis. Then there was something she said when she visited me, just before she left. It sounded odd at the time, but I didn't assign it any real importance, either."

"What?"

"'Give my love to John and Mary.'"

That did John give a chill. "She knew what Mary was planning."

"She had to. Moriarty helped Mary with her initial identity change, but he was dead when Mary obtained her forged nursing credentials for the purpose of targeting you. If Janine had been directly involved with procuring them Mary would have known her as something other than Magnussen's PA. But: It's likely that the same forger created both her ID and the nursing credentials, and he would have kept his boss Janine well-informed."

John sighed and gazed out the window again, then thought of something else. "Why would she let Mary in to kill Magnussen, though? He was still useful to her then."

"She didn't. Mary never intended to kill him-at least, not then. She was just pressuring him for the information about her. No professional killer would stand there waving a gun about if she really wanted her target dead. She'd just walk up and shoot him. She was after his records on her. Janine didn't know that they were virtual any more than I did, but she did know that they weren't in the office. Mary wouldn't pull the trigger without having the information in her hand, so Janine's risk that she'd shoot Magnussen that night was fairly low.

"What Mary didn't realize was that Janine provided that information to Magnussen years ago, so Magnussen's death didn't make her any safer." He frowned. "I didn't realize it, either. Obviously."

"So what you said about Mary not shooting Magnussen because she didn't want me to get blamed for it-"

"Was me letting her think that I was on the wrong trail."

"And Janine originally turned Mary over to Magnussen because she'd been planning all along to use her for her own...errands?"

"Exactly. It allowed her to control both of them while ensuring that neither of them would ever view her as anything other than a go-between. Clever, when you think about it. Oh, and Lestrade's now the proud owner of all the information I had on Janine's three board members. Once he forwards that to Interpol they'll have enough to shut down her money laundering and drug smuggling operations in sixteen countries. Given the track record of the police I estimate they'll make less than a complete cock of it in four of them."

John smiled. "And where's Janine now?"

"Mycroft's people picked her up when she got rid of the poisoned pen."

"Huh." John knew better than to ask what Janine's fate was likely to be; even if Sherlock knew he wouldn't answer, and John really didn't want to know.

"John," Sherlock said in a tone that contrasted strangely with the confident way he'd just explained Janine's role in their troubles, "in the future, if it ever seems to you that I'm underestimating a woman, if you'd just say the word 'Hawkins' to me I'd appreciate it very much."

"Hawkins it is," John said. "Also Smallwood, Ruffner, and Camden."

"No need to go to overboard. 'Hawkins' will do as shorthand, thanks," Sherlock said with dignity, then raised his head sharply and looked toward the door, his eyes narrowed with displeasure. A moment later there was a tap and Mycroft stood framed in the doorway. "Why're you here?" Sherlock demanded.

"It's Monday," Mycroft said.

"So?"

"Lime gelatin day. My favorite." Mycroft made a little shooing motion with his hand. "Go away."

Sherlock put his feet up on the bed. Insolent.

Mycroft sighed. "Very mature. Very sanitary. I'm here to speak with John. Alone, if you don't mind."

Sherlock glanced at John: Was that what he wanted? John gave a barely perceptible nod and Sherlock swung his feet off the bed. He paused in the doorway and eyed Mycroft. "Make it quick. The doctors said he should avoid prolonged exposure to wankers."

"Then why are you still here?"

"Boys," John said.

Mycroft held up a cigarette but Sherlock curled his lip and spurned the peace offering. "Well," Mycroft said when he'd gone. "How are you?"

The question covered a lot of ground, but John knew he didn't really care so he didn't bother parsing it. "Good."

"I trust the police weren't too much of a nuisance with their inquiries?"

"Not too much." He gestured to the chair Sherlock just vacated. "Sit down."

"No, thank you," Mycroft said. "This won't take long. I'm here to apologize for the unpleasantness with MI5."

"Sure. Go ahead."

"Sorry?"

"I'm listening."

Mycroft mastered his annoyance; it really was obnoxious that John Watson, for all his apparent ordinariness, remained so resolutely unafraid of him. "Very well. I should not have expressed my irritation with Sherlock by involving you. I apologize. It was especially egregious considering the debt I owe you for stopping him at Appledore-although when preventing him from committing indictable-only offences in future you may want to consider not cutting things quite so fine."

"I didn't know-"

"You didn't know he was going to murder Magnussen. Neither did he. And yet he very nearly did." Mycroft stepped to the window and looked out, his hands resting right over left on the handle of his umbrella, standing directly behind John, the one spot in the room that John couldn't see without turning around, and John realized that the relocation was deliberate.

Mycroft was silent for a moment, and then he said quietly, "We almost lost him, John."

"I know." John cleared his throat. "I've never seen him afraid like that."

"I know."

"Do you?"

"Of course. I know what Magnussen threatened, and why."

"Yeah, he was afraid of what Magnussen could do, but he was more afraid of you."

Mycroft laughed. "Sherlock's not afraid of me."

"He was afraid of what you could stop him doing."

"Protecting you."

"Yes."

"You may find this difficult to believe, John, but that's the last thing I want to prevent. If you hadn't been there-"

"I was."

"You have to be."

John finally turned carefully to look at him, wincing as he did so. "What brought all this on?"

Mycroft shrugged and kept his eyes focused resolutely out the window. "I owed you an apology. And...my brother's life. Again."

"Mycroft."

Mycroft sighed. "Iphigenia Killick."

John blinked at the apparent topic shift. Non sequiturs must be genetic along with earlobes. "Uh...Yes?"

"She was...interesting," Mycroft said.

"Yeah," John said, "you know, I'm not your brother. I know what that's code for."

Mycroft made a sour expression but said, "Very well. You prefer earthiness."

"Try honesty."

"She was interesting," Mycroft said again, taking the plunge. "Also intelligent, independent, spirited, and, with apologies for the contemptible sentiment, _alive_. What others interpreted as a self-destructive streak I perceived to be the result of the psychological strain of acceding to a way of life that didn't suit her. She had the courage to be idiosyncratic and the integrity to insist on following the dictates of her own mind."

"Sounds familiar," John said, and even as the words left his mouth the insight struck him: Suddenly he had a context not only for this visit but for all the years of cynicism. A young Mycroft, having ventured on a nearly undetectable romantic gesture whose subtlety was lost on a flyaway twenty year-old girl, effectively ensured not only that he would never make the mistake of caring for anyone again, but that his little brother would never make it, either, because that's where risking oneself got you. _Bravery is by far the kindest word for stupidity._ So concluded the young man who'd once dared enough to give someone the power to hurt him.

"Mycroft," John said carefully, "if...if how you've... _arranged_ things is right for you, great. But it's not right for everyone. It's not right for him, just like the things Iffy was rebelling against weren't right for her."

"I know. Now. But the damage is done. He's a grown man. For an adult to change the habits of a lifetime is almost impossible. And yet he's trying," he added with a hint of wonder in his voice. "In his own... incompetent way."

John smiled, then said, "Tell me something. Or, you know: don't, if it's none of my business."

Mycroft waited politely.

"Sherlock hated Magnussen. I mean, cut-his-damned-throat hated him." Mycroft was still waiting for a direct question to appear so he didn't reply, and John, finally realizing he was being literal, said, "Why?"

"You are familiar with the term 'swot,' I believe?" Mycroft said.

"Yeah, course," John said. "My nickname at uni. It was on the back of my football jersey. 'J. Swotson'."

"It was Sherlock's first, middle, and last name beginning in primary school."

"I'm sure. But-"

"You're a clever man in your own way, John," Mycroft went on, making John roll his eyes, "but I imagine that medical school required thousands of hours of unremitting study and hard work, correct?"

"Of course."

"Effort that could not be sustained without occasional breaks, respites, weekends off, holidays."

"Sure."

"Sherlock was never like that. He craved learning from the time he could focus his eyes on the mobile over his cot. It was never work to him. It was joy. He never wanted a break from it. He dreaded holidays, could never stand still, always wanted to discover, find out, understand something new. He always 'had to be doing,' as our father put it."

John nodded; he could absolutely believe that.

"Unfortunately," Mycroft went on, "he thought everyone was like he was. With no one other than our parents and me as examples, it was a reasonable conclusion for him to draw. When it turned out that he was not only not admired for the things he was proudest of but reviled and ridiculed for them...Well. It had the virtue of giving him something new to learn, however, which was how to armour himself. I think you'll agree he mastered that lesson quite thoroughly."

"Quite," John said ruefully.

"It's easy enough to do," Mycroft said. "But what's apparently more difficult is to stop hating the injustice of suffering for his singularity. Nor do I think I'd advise him to do so, even in light of what's happened. No one in the family was pleased when he insisted on this detective business, but it does make him happy, it seems, and if it gives him an avenue for revenging himself on bullies, then I suppose so much the better."

"Short of killing them, yeah, I'd say so," John said.

"Short of that," Mycroft agreed.

John looked thoughtful, then said, smiling to himself, "Earlobes."

"I beg your pardon?"

"They're genetic. The shape, I mean. I didn't know dragon-slaying ran in families, too."

Mycroft frowned.

"Bit of an in-joke," John said. "Sorry."

Mycroft returned to their former theme as though the detour never took place. "You have to be there for him, John," he said again. "Please."

It would be awkward speaking of this with his therapist, let alone Mycroft, and if it were any other man John would say the fact that they were even having this discussion pointed to Mycroft being drunk, but that was out of the question. No: If Sherlock feared Mycroft on the Appledore patio, then in his turn he had absolutely terrified his brother, and today John was seeing that fear still echoing. "There are two of us in this friendship, Mycroft," he said. "There will always be two of us."


	20. Chapter 20

**Monday, 26 January 2015**

"Well, that's another dragon slain," Mycroft said. "How does one keep track of that? Notches on the bedpost? Or perhaps blog posts are the modern update."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Sherlock looked cross.

"Elizabeth Camden," Mycroft said. "Your 'Mary Watson.'"

"I didn't 'slay' her," Sherlock said. "She killed herself. And she was no dragon."

"Wasn't she?"

"No."

"She was James Moriarty's personal assassin and bodyguard. Isn't what that what dragons do? Protect the throne?"

"Sentiment doesn't suit you, Mycroft. Neither do extended metaphors."

Mycroft considered him briefly, then said, "Well, and so John's home from hospital."

"Yes. He's home."

"How is he?"

"Better. She didn't use hollowpoints. The surgeon said it made a difference."

"Oversight?"

"Deliberate. They're too effective. She wasn't planning mercy killings."

"Charming. But in any case I meant psychologically."

Sherlock frowned. "He's fine psychologically. Obviously."

"Are you sure?"

Well, he _was_. "Of course I'm sure. Why wouldn't he be?"

"He shot his wife, Sherlock. That has...consequences."

"She was never his wife. Not in any real way. He knows that now. Besides, she _was_ trying to kill him. And me." When Mycroft looked sceptical he added impatiently, "He's stronger than you think."

Mycroft stared at him for a moment, then said indifferently, "Have it your way." After a pause he said, in an entirely different tone, "Sherlock: Now that you know about my association with the countess, perhaps you'll make every effort to forget it."

"I'd certainly like to."

"And if you could impress upon John the value of silence-"

"Well, we were going to post about it on Facebook, but perhaps we'll just gossip between ourselves while we eat ice cream from the carton and braid each other's hair. Believe it or not, Mycroft, he's not interested in your personal lifeany more than I am."

"And yet he eagerly trailed along when you decided to harass her about an intensely personal matter."

"Mmm...Not exactly."

"Not exactly what?"

"'Harassing' the countess was his idea."

"I beg your pardon."

"To be strictly accurate, his idea _led_ to harassing the countess, but that's close enough for government work."

"I _apologized_ for using him to punish you," Mycroft said, deeply chagrined.

Sherlock laughed. "Don't take it so hard, Mycroft. People much stupider than you have underestimated him. You're in good company."

"So are you."

"That's what I meant."

Mycroft's phone vibrated then; he glanced at it, typed a brief reply to a text, then looked up. His brother hadn't left and showed no sign of being about to do so. "Why are you still here?" he asked impatiently. "Oh, dear God. You don't want to talk about your _feelings_ , do you?"

"No. I want to talk about yours."

"I don't have any. Go away."

Sherlock smiled. "You were right."

"I always assume so. Goodbye."

"You were also very wrong. Caring's not an advantage. Except when it is."

Mycroft sighed and rubbed his forehead. "It works for you, Sherlock. It doesn't work for me."

"It could."

"Why do you think that you know me better than I know myself?"

"I don't." He peered more closely at Mycroft, making a big deal about it. "But then, I don't have to. You _are_ human? I have it on good authority that there are some universal constants involved."

"Ah, yes. You've been learning at your master's knee, have you? You're an amateur, Sherlock, with an amateur's overconfidence in his own powers. The explanation you're looking for is very simple: Iphigenia Killick was and remains a rich and potentially powerful woman. I formed an alliance with her, just as I have with dozens of other influential people, in order to advance my work here."

Sherlock smiled with an irritating, knowing complacency as though Mycroft hadn't spoken. "So you're saying the launch window is closed."

"I'm saying that it was never open." He made a face. "Where do you get these strained analogies? Is there an app?"

"I underestimated you," Sherlock said.

"No, little brother. You over-estimated me. You always have."

"Ugh," Sherlock said with a scowl. "All this random sentiment should come with a warning label. Can't you pass a law?"

"I'll see what I can do."

Sherlock considered him a moment longer, then dropped it. "What about Janine?" he asked.

"No sign of her," Mycroft said. "But I have people looking."

"I handed her to you on a plate, Mycroft," Sherlock growled irritably.

"Yes, you did. Your little ruse worked. Well. Batrachotoxin on a pen. One has to admire the elegance of the idea."

"Wish I'd thought of it." Mycroft scowled. "Oh, don't give me that look," Sherlock said disgustedly. "Anyway, John beat you to it."

"To what?"

"'The Talk.' Murder bad. I get it."

"Sherlock, if I thought you were only now coming to that realization I'd turn you in myself, and I suspect John would do the same." He paused, then said more seriously, "I do regret pushing you to the point where you thought it was your only option. Or should I say, to the point where you stopped thinking at all. If John hadn't been there...Well. Perhaps he's best factored in to your schemes after all."

"You think?"

"Of course the fact that you insist on caring about him is what made you lose your head in the first place."

" _Mycroft."_

"The Russian sniper was apprehended, however," Mycroft said, just as eager as his brother to change the subject. "He's being... _interviewed_ as we speak."

Sherlock wasn't interested. He clapped his hands down on the arms of the chair and stood. "I'm leaving."

"Thank God."

"The last time I left John alone with Mrs. Hudson too long all her mindless wittering made him bleed internally." He paused in the doorway with his hand on the lever. "Oh, and Mycroft?"

"What now?"

"When you see her this afternoon, do give Janine my regards."

ooooo

Mycroft had just tapped his computer to wake it when Anthea knocked at the door. "Lady Ruffner to see you, sir," she said.

Mycroft was already standing when Anthea showed the countess in and stepped around the desk to greet her. "Lady Ruffner," he said with a bow, impeccably correct as always, and shaking her proffered hand. "Welcome. Do come in. Sit down, please. How may I be of service?"

"Iffy. And you can stop with the bowing and scraping, for a start," she said pleasantly. "Sit down, for heaven's sake, and don't pretend you don't know why I've come."

"May I offer you a drink?" he asked.

"You certainly may, but I'll get it myself," she said, and as she dropped ice cubes into the tumbler she held the glass up in a 'do you want one?' gesture.

"No, thank you," Mycroft said.

"I just passed your brother on his way out," she said, by way of opening the conversation as she sat down. "Your famous brother." She laughed at his expression. "You look like you're chewing a lemon, you know. Is it a dangerous job, being a detective?"

"It is the way Sherlock does it," Mycroft sniffed. "Lady-" She stopped him with a look and he corrected himself. "Iffy. I know why you're here and I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am that Sherlock invaded your privacy in that unconscionable way. He never learnt of you through me and if I'd known what he intended I can absolutely assure you that I would have stopped him."

"Well, then it's a damned good thing you didn't know, isn't it?" she said, and he blinked in surprise. "Mycroft. He gave me and a lot of other people a way to stand up to a monster. How can that be a bad thing?" He started to say something, but she cut him off. "That was rhetorical. It's impossible for it to be a bad thing, and I think you know that." Her expression softened a bit. "In any case I know very well that you weren't the one who brought me to his attention."

"Then who?"

"Aunt Angela, of course," she said.

"Of course." He'd been standing this whole time but now he sat down as well.

"I love my husband," she said. "I love my children-all three of them. Yet I spent two decades being terrified of exposure and letting that fear colour my enjoyment of all my time with them. We don't have that long in this life, Mycroft. We certainly don't have enough time to waste it being afraid of cowards. I owe your brother and his friend an enormous debt of gratitude, and so do all the others Magnussen held under his thumb. That includes you." She tipped her drink toward him, then sipped from it.

The thought of owing bus fare to Sherlock and John was displeasing in the extreme, but he couldn't think of a thing to say in reply that wouldn't sound petty.

"Robert wants to see that they're properly recognized," she added. "He thinks of nominating them for the QGM."

"Absolutely not," he said instantly, startled out of his usual diplomacy.

She frowned. "Why ever not?"

"Screw down your ashtrays," he muttered.

"Sorry?"

"Iffy, you might just as profitably reward a baby for soiling itself. The baby will mess regardless and it won't understand why you're praising it. In any case, Sherlock and formal occasions...He can't operate a tie, and Dr. Watson is still labouring under the misapprehension that corduroy is current."

She laughed. "Well. Perhaps I can suggest that Robert arrange some sort of private thank-you."

Mycroft sighed with relief. "That would be much wiser," he said. "But if in fact you really want to impress him you'd be better advised to give him an axe murderer's spleen in a pickle jar."

She laughed again, although she didn't really follow him, but then she composed herself. "She's beautiful, Mycroft," she said with no segue. "Giving her up was the biggest mistake of my life, but I think we can be friends now, she and I. You kept her safe from that man all these years," she added. "I'd like for you to meet."

"That would not be a good idea," he said firmly. Then, when she looked surprised he added more gently, "I am not a good influence on children."

"She's a young woman now."

"She's a beautiful, accomplished, happy, and well-adjusted young woman now. The last thing she needs is an introduction to someone like me."

"How can you say that?"

"Iffy. I can say it because of Sherlock. I was an appalling big brother to him. At every turn, where I could have mitigated his weaknesses, I managed to amplify them. If it were not for Dr. Watson the mistakes I made with my brother would have destroyed him by now. I mean that literally. You must trust me on this," he added, when she looked shocked.

She looked into his face, her expression searching and thoughtful. "I'll tell you what I think, shall I? I think your brother is a brave, resourceful, brilliant young man and that he didn't get that way by having a prat for a big brother."

He didn't have the heart to tell her that was largely because of him that Sherlock was also remote, ruthless, calculating, intransigent, and dangerous. "He got that way in spite of me."

She looked at her watch. "Your PA said that you have an important meeting in a few minutes. I'll go. I really just came to ask for your forgiveness."

"Granted," he said instantly. "For what?"

She looked down at her hands and all her characteristic insouciance vanished. "A moment ago I said that life's too short to be afraid of cowards. Well. It's also far too short to waste it being cowards ourselves, and I've only just realized that very recently. It was wrong of me to ever ask you to assume the burden of my-well, of what I thought at the time was a mistake. It was even more wrong because...Because I took advantage of you. Back then I...I went about a lot of things-most things-in a very wrong-headed way. There was a desire for conquest, if you see what I mean, but nothing deeper. I didn't have any thoughts of...friendship. It was shallow and wrong and cruel, and while I'm not vain enough to assume that you consider that a loss I know that I threw away a chance for something very important. You are a better and more honourable creature than I will ever be, Mycroft. I didn't give you the respect you deserved, and I will always be sorry for that."

"Apology accepted, of course," he said with a smile. "But it's unnecessary. In any case I'm afraid that you very much overestimate not only the benefits of prolonged association with me but the rigour of what you call my 'burden.'"

"I doubt that," she said. She put down the drink, picked up her purse, and stood. He stepped around the desk to see her out. She paused in the doorway and he automatically put out his hand to shake, but instead she kissed his cheek.

"You're a brave, good man, Mycroft," she said. "Now let yourself be happy. It doesn't hurt as much as you think."

ooooo

The cell door creaked open and Mycroft Holmes stepped into the room. Eyed the prisoner, observed the red marks on the detainee's wrists where the handcuffs chafed; that was inevitable when the chains were fixed to the wall at a point too high to allow sitting down.

"Good afternoon. My name is Mycroft Holmes. I trust you slept poorly, Miss Hawkins?"


	21. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

 **Friday, 30 January 2015**

Sherlock raked a glance over Mycroft and the case he was carrying and said, "John's not down yet."

"Yes, the fact that he's not in the room suggested that to me, as well. How is he, by the way?"

"Fine," Sherlock said, and put up the morning paper like a wall, very eager to ignore his brother.

"And he's sharing the rent again."

"Mm."

"So this isn't just a phase you're going through."

Scowl. "A phase?"

"This affinity for-" sneering "-pain. Heartbreak. Loss."

"I haven't lost anything."

"Well, one out of three isn't bad. Oh, wait. Yes, it is."

Sherlock sniffed. "It's not an _affinity_ ," he said. "It's..."

"What?"

"A calculation."

"A calculation?"

"Yes. I calculated that...on balance...it's worth the pain."

"Did you."

"Mm."

"I don't need to ask what 'it' is, do I?"

"I suppose that depends on how thick you are." He turned to look at his brother. "Why are you even asking?"

"It's called making conversation."

" _John!_ " Sherlock yelled.

The muffled reply floated down. "What?" John was obviously in the process of dressing, pulling on a shirt.

"Mycroft's here to see you."

"In the hamper, I think," John called.

"No, _Mycroft's_ here. Come and see what he wants so he'll go away."

John's voice took on an edge of peevishness. "I said I think it's in the hamper."

"For God's sake," Mycroft muttered.

Moments later John padded downstairs in his slippers, wearing a robe over sweatpants and a t-shirt. "Did you find-? Oh. Mycroft," he said. "Didn't know you were here."

"Ah, John. How are you feeling?"

"Good. Thanks. You?"

"Mycroft's brought you a gift," Sherlock noted impatiently, breaking up the love-fest.

John looked accusingly at him. "You might have said. I wouldn't have come down."

"Very amusing." Mycroft held out the little wooden case. "You dropped this, I believe."

John took the case. Inside lay his Browning, cleaned and oiled and gleaming like the day it was first issued to him. There was a full magazine in the gun and a new spare, also loaded, in the case. "Why would you return this?"

"It belongs to you," Mycroft said simply.

John considered him, waiting for a fuller explanation.

"A gun is a tool, Dr. Watson," Mycroft said. "You were a soldier. You know that as well as anyone."

"Yes." Non-committal.

"This particular tool lets you accomplish a very particular task." He glanced at his brother, who wasn't attending and didn't catch the look. "To that end, your dispensation for possessing it is now quite official."

While John had never connected with Mycroft the way he did with Sherlock and likely never would, and while Mycroft's expression gave nothing away now, following as this did on the heels of their recent history they understood each other perfectly. This was Mycroft's thank you-and what it looked like when he entrusted John with the care of his little brother.

"Yeah, okay. Thanks," was all John said, however, and set the case aside. "Well. Coffee?" he asked, heading for the kitchen.

"Thank you, no," Mycroft said. "Unlimited free coffee is one of the perquisites of my position, and as I understand it we have people who clean the carafes more often than twice per annum."

"Suit yourself," John said. "Speaking of cleaning, thanks for putting the fear of God into the repair company."

Mycroft sniffed. "Ironically, I was blackmailed into it. The idea of housing the two of you in my spare rooms was...unpalatable. But I see that since the repairs were completed you've wasted no time devolving to your former level of squalor."

It was true. The flat still smelt of fresh paint and jointing compound, but much of the familiar clutter had already crept back into position, while the kitchen appeared to be hosting a laboratory supply company clearance sale.

"Squalor, comfort," John said, returning to the table with his coffee. "Thanks all the same. And listen," he added, "since you're here, could you look at the toilet? The flapper's not seating properly and-"

Sherlock snorted a laugh and Mycroft scowled. "What can be given can be taken, Doctor," he said icily.

Sherlock glanced irritably at him. "Don't you have a time card to punch?"

"As a matter of fact, I do have to be going. By the way, I've a meeting with Lord Ruffner this afternoon; it seems he and his wife are determined to thank you for prying into their personal lives, and while I've contrived to talk him out of any sort of medal ceremony he's very keen on inviting Lady Smallwood, Iffy's daughter, and the two of you for tea."

Sherlock's expression shifted at once to outrage and John's to dismay. "Can't you, I don't know, give him a ministry or something, instead?" John asked.

"That is one option," Mycroft agreed, "but I hope instead to appeal to his sense of decorum." He drew his mobile from the breast pocket of his coat and snapped a photo of the kitchen. "That should do it. Good day."

ooooo

An hour after his brother's departure Sherlock was still mulling Mycroft's repeated insinuations that John might be more troubled by having shot Mary than he'd freely confessed, and he'd been watching for signs that it was the case. People required time to 'process' their emotions, Sherlock knew, but fortunately John wasn't people. While no one could possibly describe him as habitually morose, neither was he possessed of a naturally sunny disposition, so his somewhat stolid demeanor now wasn't the least remarkable. Still, for one who knew him well it was possible to detect in his characteristic restraint an undercurrent of sadness, and Sherlock wondered whether that was what his brother meant.

John had been silent for nearly eight minutes, staring abstractedly out the window while his oatmeal congealed in its bowl. Surreptitiously Sherlock eyed him over the top of the newspaper, weighing whether or not to ask after him. For his part Sherlock preferred to be left alone to work his way out of a mood at his own pace and he knew that John did as well, but he knew further that friends asked after each other. More to the point, in John's case he cared about the answer.

Still, it was an awkward topic to raise. Temporizing, he strode into the kitchen and returned with two cups of coffee, one of which he set before John, but John was so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn't acknowledge the unusual offering with so much as a flicker of awareness. Finally Sherlock decided 'the hell with it' and cleared his throat. Nothing. "John," he said. " _John_."

John blinked in surprise. "Sorry. What?"

Having won John's full attention Sherlock wasn't certain where to begin, but finally he came out with, "How are you?"

John regarded him warily. This was ground they'd already covered today. "Still good," he said carefully. "Same as an hour ago. The last time you asked."

Sherlock tried again. "I mean...How _are_ you?"

"Are you asking me whether I can tie my own shoes yet, or how I'm coping?"

Sherlock looked embarrassed but held his gaze. "The...coping."

John sighed. "Well, you know," he began, and when Sherlock's expression made it clear that he did not he added, "I've been trying to perfect your art form." Sherlock looked quizzical. "Making my emotions align with the facts. You make it look easy, but for some of us it takes time. It's coming along, I guess. How did I misjudge her so badly? That's what I was thinking about."

"You didn't misjudge her. She misled you. There's a difference."

"I know," John agreed. "But...Here's the thing." He spoke with deliberation because he particularly wanted to be understood. "Who I loved never existed, but it seemed very real. She tried like hell to kill us, but I can't...That's the part that doesn't seem real at all. Why is that?"

"You loved who she led you to believe she was," Sherlock said. "Your reasoning wasn't invalid, just fed wrong information. Now you have facts that are at odds with the old emotions and you have to reconcile them. I'm not sure why you think that can happen instantly."

"It does for you."

"I'm a professional. Don't try it at home."

John smiled, but then his expression turned grave again.

"John," Sherlock said, peering into his face, "if you hadn't taken the shot we'd both be dead and the sniper wouldn't have missed. You gave her another chance to choose a better way."

"I know," John said. "I know she didn't have a great choice by then. For her it was no choice at all, I guess, but it was the only one she'd left herself. That wasn't my fault. I'm not beating myself up about it. What I was thinking about...It was so easy for her to kill. She liked it. You don't compile a career like hers unless you do." He paused, looking down at his hands, then said, "When you kill someone. You cross a line and you can't cross back. Everything changes. _You_ change. I don't know if I can ever explain how, exactly. I just know that it happens and it never gets any easier. You see the faces. Images. It's always when you don't expect it, too. When you're laughing with friends, brushing your teeth, getting into a cab...I wouldn't wish it on anyone."

"Yet she liked it."

"Yes. Yes, she did." He looked up at Sherlock. "I met a guy like that once. Knew of some others. Killing turns people into animals-or, I guess I should say you have to make yourself into an animal to kill-and some people can't come back from it. They can't make themselves human again. Some don't even want to because they like the way killing makes them feel. Sometimes it can be the only right choice, but you have to stop the best part of yourself and use the animal part, and no matter how ready you think you are it's always a fight afterward. For most people. Most people can..." He groped for the right word. "...reacquire? Yeah. Reacquire their human part, especially if they've been trained for it, or if they have the right mindset, but no one comes back from killing the same as they went in. I'm sorry I can't explain it any better than that," he concluded with an apologetic smile.

Sherlock was sinfully proud of his own rationality and emotional control, but it occurred to him at that moment that in this as in so many other things John was his superior. In battle John could kill his enemies without hesitation, but afterward he was still John Watson because he'd long ago perfected the subordination of his feral instincts to his moral code, and even while he was certain of the rightness of his conduct he mourned the circumstances that required the transition. With humiliating clarity Sherlock recalled the fear and rage that turned him into a cornered, snarling savage on the Appledore patio, an animal without judgement or reason, willing to kill but incapable of projecting the consequences for himself and the friend he was trying to save.

Now, after witnessing Sherlock's greatest failure as a detective and as a man, John was sitting across the table from him. Back in Baker Street. Home. For one of the few times in his life Sherlock thought less about the existence of a fact than how he felt about it, and examining his emotions was not something made easier for him through practice.

For as long as he could remember he'd pursued with arrant intensity a solitary life of the mind, his chief solace and delight. That insistence on solitude, among other things, made him a poor choice for a companion. He'd never cared to be a friend before and he wasn't good at it now. It had not always been a comfortable adjustment, and for a long time he'd not even recognized the need to adjust, didn't understand that he needed to develop a new habit: the habit of friendship.

Arrayed against the raw exhilaration of pitting his mind against all comers, John's friendship had at first seemed subtle, restrained, staid. Now Sherlock was amazed to find that not only was it every bit as real and powerful as his reason, but that its very reliability was just as intoxicating and satisfying. It was also, it seemed, every bit as necessary: When even reason deserted him John remained, the most constant and immutable fact in his life.

 _Love will be harder for you,_ his father told him long ago, _because you think there has to be a conflict between your mind and your heart. But you feel what you do because you think what you do. You've got it in the right order, Sherlock. Cause and effect. You can trust that._

He cleared his throat. It had taken almost no time at all for those thoughts to flash through his brain: The apologetic smile still lingered on John's face as Sherlock met his eyes.

"John...There's something I've meant to say...always, and never have. I meant to say it so many times... _should_ have said it long ago." He paused, and what he thought was, _As long as I am alive you will never. Be. Alone._ What he said was, "Thank you."

 _Finis_


End file.
